Hospitals in India woo foreign patients

Sir:

This "news" has multiple implications, 1) it is like an advertisement
in the newspaper, which would attract more customers to buy health in
India, 2) an over inflated waiting list of patients in need of medical
help and worsening quality of health provided in foreign countries will
get deflated and whether or not quality of health care will improve there
is questionable, 3) only a chain of a handful of hospitals in India
located in cosmopolitan cities in which foreign people are shareholders
will woo foreign patients, 4) foreign patients may primarily include
Indians living abroad who are not at par economically with the local
nationals and seeking cheap but of high quality of health care, 5) these
hospitals are more often run by physicians trained in foreign countries
whose patients must also get benefit from foreign trained doctors working
in India, and 6) thus, the health market for foreign patients and
investors will increase remarkably and as a result of this poor Indian
people including children, mothers and elderly in need of urgent help from
competent doctors will continue to suffer and die prematurely because of
lack of timely medical care.

Finally, I believe that the current government will focus on
improving the health of poor people who have helped them to win the
parliamentary election with flying colours.

Reference:

Ganapati Mudur. Hospitals in India woo foreign patients. BMJ 2004;
328: 1338

Competing interests:
I am Indian psychiatrist and working in Saudi Arabia for more than two decades.