Chandigarh must ‘strive’ to be medical tourism hub

Tribune News Service

Naina Mishra

Chandigarh, November 18

The “vision document” for Chandigarh drafted and finalised in consultation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has advocated the need to position Chandigarh as a medical tourism destination.

There is a need to promote Chandigarh as a quality healthcare destination for people from across the globe so as to gainfully utilise the healthcare expertise and infrastructure available in the city, says the document.

Robust public health infra

• UT has a good public health infra in terms of tertiary and specialised hospitals, and professionally qualified doctors, says vision document
• The tricity has presence of eminent medical educational institutions such as the PGI, NIPER, IMTECH, ISER, Homi Bhabha Cancer Institute

Medical tourism involves people travelling to another country for healthcare. Southern states, especially Kerala, have developed health tourism as one of the tools to promote tourism.

The Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, has introduced medical visa for foreign tourists coming to India for medical treatment.

City’s healthcare facilities, including the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGI), Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Sector 32, and Government Multi-Speciality Hospital (GMSH), Sector 16, are overburdened due to a heavy rush of patients from other states as well as abroad.

The document says city residents, even those who can pay for private medical services, prefer to avail of healthcare services from government facilities, leading to a relatively low contribution of private health sector to the service delivery mix.

The vision document says quality services and advanced healthcare (such as organ transplant services) should be strengthened. The PGI has specialised centres offering liver, heart, kidney, bone marrow and cornea transplant services. The PGI is working towards setting up a facility for multi-organ transplant, including lungs, pancreas and intestine.