Never let opportunity go

HEALTHCARE

India's emergence on the medicare hub is almost assured, as global researchers flock in.

With India fast becoming a destination for medical tourism, it's not just patients from all over the world who're flocking in. Doctors from across the globe are also exploring the possibilities of working closely with hospitals, especially on research projects. No wonder then, a handful of doctors from the US were in Delhi last week on a fact finding mission.

They were here for the inaugural function of Artemis Health Institute in Gurgaon, a 500-bed hospital specialising in oncology, cardio-thoracic and muscular skeletal diseases, and evinced more than just a passing interest in working with local doctors in these fields. All this, while also looking at weaving ayurveda with allopathy for research purposes.

Led by Dr Kushagra Katariya associate professor, cardio-thoracic surgery, University of Miami and chief of cardio-thoracic surgery, Miami VA Medical Center, the team of visiting doctors included a wide variety of specialists.

For instance: Dr Thomas Beaver, associate professor, cardio-thoracic surgery at University of Florida, an expert in atrial fibrillation and aortic surgery; Dr Ajit Kumar, head of biotechnology at George Washington University; Georges St Laurent Jr, founder of the St Laurent Institute to study molecular biology of chronic diseases; Dr Hassan Tehrani, an expert in endovascular therapies at the University of Miami; Dr Richard Thurer, an expert in lung cancer; and Jas Katariya, an anaesthetist at the University of Miami.

While Dr Kushagra and Jas Katariya are joining Artemis, which is the brainchild of Apollo Tyres' chairman and managing director, Omkar Singh Kanwar, the others are looking at collaborations as individual professionals and also as representatives of their respective institutions, with Artemis.

"I am looking at collaborations in the areas of R&D and use of ayurveda in treatment of cancers in their early stages. This can mean anything, like Artemis' doctors coming to US institutes for training and doctors like us visiting Artemis on a regular basis," says Kumar.

Adds Beaver, "I am currently in negotiation stage and am looking at extending all kinds of support to Artemis in my field."

Katariya says Artemis will increasingly look at link-ups in the fields of translational medicine, bio-informatics, genetic fingerprinting and genoma-ayurveda (gene mapping to understand ayurveda).

With medical tourism currently estimated at $333 million and expected to grow by 25 per cent every year to cross $2 billion by 2012, and with only 1.5 hospital beds for every 1,000 people in India as against 4.3 beds for 1,000 persons as the global average, India's investment potential is enormous.

Most intriguingly, Artemis claims it will not charge premium prices. "Rather, it will offer premium services at low cost," says Katariya.

As a long term project, immediate profit is not the objective. So long as India offers the opportunity for low cost research and practice (the medical sector's insurance bill, for example, is very low), the world's white coats will flock in, despite the mutterings on the lack of local research data protection. And investment in India's medical sector is always welcome. Both quality and accountability need to rise.