India should aim for advanced surgeries

Rising costs, waiting driving patients to alternate locations

Social unrest in South America, Caribbeans and high medical costs in the US and Europe are driving Americans to find alternate locations like India and other Asian countries for advanced surgeries.

"South America, Europe and Carribean islands "" known destinations for advanced surgeries "" are gradually getting out of bounds because of the anti-American sentiments) and rising costs for American middle class families," said Dr Brooke R Seckel, professor at Harvard Medical School and director, Lahey Centre for Cosmetic and Laser Surgery at Lexington, Massachusetts.

Traditionally, Bermuda, Bahamas and a few other West Indian locations which are just two to four hours away by air, were the favoured destinations. But rising cost is driving the search for alternate locations, he added.

Under this scenario, countries like India, Thailand and Malaysia are emerging as low-cost destinations for advanced surgeries like cosmetic, facial and breast implant surgeries, anti-ageing, body firming, botox and restylane injections for facial rejuvenation.

Dr Seckel is currently in India conducting cosmetic surgeries at Studio D'image, an image enhancement centre set up by Golden Palms Hotel and Spa near Bangalore.

Talking about the US scenario, he said that the baby boomers have reached the age where they need medical services and the growing acceptability of advanced surgeries or procedures for image enhancement is fuelling the demand. In the US alone about 8.7 million procedures were conducted in 2003.

The main hurdle in the West is the increasing practice of socialised medication dictated by health maintenance organisations (HMOs).

"It is the HMOs who decide what the patients need than what the patients want. This is also one of the reason for choosing alternate locations or destinations," said Dr Seckel.

"With the sudden rush for advanced surgeries, hospitals and doctors are unable to handle it and are postponing surgeries by over two to four months. Unable to wait that long, patients on their own are looking for alternate locations with the help of their local physicians," he added.

Dr Seckel, who has conducted surgeries in the US, Bermuda, Australia, Brazil, Japan and Hong Kong, is highly appreciative of Indian talent and said, Indian doctors are well placed in West Asia, Europe and the US. It is with the help of this expertise that India can develop or build good infrastructure to attract high spending patients.

"India can take advantage of this as it has the highest number of British-trained doctors and the cost of operations is low. All it needs is good marketing," said Dr Seckel.

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Healthy path

• Traditional destinations for advanced surgeries getting out of bounds for American patients
• Anti-American sentiments has Americans avoiding their favourite health tourism destinations
• Cosmetic, breast implant, anti-aging, botox, facial rejuvenation procedures among most popular