The Medical Tourist Company in the News...

HAVE SICKNESS, MUST TRAVEL

03 December 2006

Fed up with NHS waiting lists, dirty hospitals and shoddy services, hundreds of British taxpayers are travelling to Europe and beyond for operations...

As a GP in Kenya, Premhar Shah of the Medical Tourist Company used to shuttle patients to South Africa and India. "When I came here [the UK], I read about long waiting lists and thought I should give the business a try," he says. "People here are frustrated. Even in Kenya, if I wanted a blood test done I could get it in hours. But British patients always ask, 'How many days will my blood test take?'"...

A constant refrain of health tourists is that they have been driven to it. "From my first visit to my GP to seeing the consultant took eight months," says Bob Gallagher [client of The Medical Tourist Company], 56, who went to India for cardiac ablation. "It was £2,000 rather than £12,000 in the UK. "Gallagher's ablation became open-heart surgery. "Sitting in India, I thought, 'Who do I trust?' Not the NHS. Easy choice." So he had the surgery and returned home happy. "They discovered a problem that hadn't even been picked up here," he says. "The surgeon phoned me at home. Can you see someone from the NHS doing that?" He has now managed to get his operation covered by travel insurance, but maintains he would have tried reparations from the NHS. "They need to be embarassed." Seething beneath almost every British medical tourist's story is a resentment towards the NHS for its lack of provision in the hour of need.

Click here to read the full article...

HEALTH TOURISTS SIGN UP FOR SUN, SEA AND SURGERY

25 February 2006

Dr Premhar Shah, of The Medical Tourist Company, says that while an eight-hour flight for treatment might seem daunting, India offers excellent value and high-quality facilities. "We prefer to send health tourists to India because the standard of care is so high," he says. "Also, there is no language barrier - all the doctors we use speak English."

Dr Shah's company, set up last year, has already sent 40 patients to India, to hospitals in Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore. It offers hip and knee replacements, cosmetic surgery, dental treatments, weight-reduction programmes, corrective eye surgery, and even some heart procedures.

To read the full article published in The Independent Newspaper, please click here...

Read about the experience of Mike Cooke on BBC News, a customer of The Medical Tourist Company, in which we organised heart care for him at one of our five star hospitals in India. Click here to read the article on the BBC News website... 

A HEART patient faced with a year-long wait for an NHS op or paying £8,500 to go private flew to India instead - and saved £6,000.

Mike Cooke, 59, paid £2,300 to fly to Bombay with his wife and have surgery there. Dad-of-two Mike, 59, of Diptford, Devon, said yesterday: "I feel great. We had a luxurious suite with room and laundry service. It was like a fave-star hotel."

Mike booked the Op after surfing the internet. An NHS spokesman said: "Capacity within the NHS is increasing."

Outsourcing Your Heart - Elective Surgery in India? Medical Tourism is Booming

With no health insurance and lacking $60,000 for a badly needed operation, Steinard, a 59-year-old Floridian, hopped onto the Internet and then onto a plane to India ... 8,300 MILES LATER, IT'S FIXED ... found out that he was closer to a heart attack than he had imagined. Steinard had a double bypass last week in New Delhi … in the U.S. insurers negotiate discounts, but the uninsured pay retail rates for medical procedures.

India's, like its other outsourcing segments, is booming. Apollo Hospitals, one of the largest private chains in the world with 46 hospitals in three countries, and Wockhardt Hospitals Group, which has eight hospitals in India, are working through agencies like IndUShealth, PlanetHospital and The Medical Tourist Co. in Britain to build business across the West.

Time Magazine, 29 May 2006