nomad4ever

It’s been a while since I wrote about Medical Tourism. Meanwhile I had a bit more experience with medical services in India and I’m impressed with what is available.

If you are an Expat, living in Asia without health insurance or a holiday maker from Europe, Australia or the US – it could be interesting for you to check out the medical system offered in India.

You can find solutions of world-class healthcare with very affordable price tags.

Let me give you 5 reasons, why you should especially think of Goa, when considering your next surgery or health procedure:

5. Variety and abundance of available medical skills

Goa is very well prepared to service foreigners when it comes to health care. Most Goan doctors speak perfect English, a majority of them is also schooled or trained abroad. Besides dealing day-2-day with local patients; they have great experience in catering to bollywood actors or foreigners with their special needs.

While India in general has an universal healthcare system – meaning that most drugs or procedures are free for the local population – there is also a healthy (no pun intended) competition between governmental and privately run hospitals and healthcare institutions for servicing the more wealthy locals with lifestyle procedures (like cosmetic surgery) or visiting foreign tourists (who want to save a dime or two compared to their home countries).

If you look around in the tourist belt and the bigger cities next to it – you can find plenty of private healthcare providers. Especially the north-western coastal region (Candolim, Calangute and Baga) are simply plastered with dental clinics with very affordable prices. In this mentioned area alone I can easily count 30-40 dentists, while larger hospitals mainly only have outlets here, with their main operations to be found in the larger cities like Mapusa, Panaji or even Margao in the south.

Major hospitals to consider are for instance the Vrundavan Hospital in Mapusa, Manipal Hospital in Dona Paula, Vintage Hospital in Panaji, Apollo Victor Hospital (very new and a bit more expensive) and NUSI Hospital in/near Margao.

Some of the medical services offered here are: General Medicine and Cardiology, Orthopedic Surgery, Pediatrics, Trauma and Critical care, Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery, Endoscopic and Laproscopic Surgery, Gastroenterology and Oncosurgery, Neuro surgery, Cosmetic Surgery, ENT, Urology, Nephrology, Dermatology, Ophthalmology, Dental, Medical Genetics and Counseling, Respiratory Medicine, Physiotherapy, Dietetics, Alternative and Ayurvedic Medicine.

I wrote already about vaccinations, which can be had in almost every hospital as well.

4. Quality of Surgery, Staff and Operation Theaters

This one is a bit hard to describe and has to be seen to believed. Hospitals here in Goa for sure don’t look very special from the outside. But like with other things, go inside and you are in a complete different world.

The hygiene in every hospital I visited so far while shopping around for the best prices is generally good. Sometimes you really have to wonder, how they can maintain a hospital so clean in an area that looks like a rubbish dump from the outside.

Welcome to India! Here especially, looks can be deceiving.

Operational devices, x-ray machines, dental equipment and other instruments are of high standard, although I wouldn’t go as far as calling them on par with Singapore or Europe (except the dentists maybe).

But you can expect modern facilities and up2date staff and nurses in spotless uniforms. So for general healthcare services and minor surgeries I wouldn’t be afraid to go under the knife here, as most established procedures didn’t change much over the last couple of years.

On this India forum – there are plenty of members who had various procedures successfully done here in Goa, including complicated knee, heart or cosmetic surgeries.

3. Short Queues or waiting Times

Generally, most dentists and hospitals in Goa have very short waiting times, completely different to healthcare providers in Europe or other developed countries, where you sometimes have to make appointments weeks in advance. As a foreigner you can enjoy a very individual and prompt reception. Dentists usually will arrange appointments only 2-3 days away, convenient enough to get a procedure done during a 2-week holiday.

The same applies for consultations without appointments with specialists. As a paying customer you usually don’t have to wait long in crowded waiting areas. The few times we had to visit a doctor it was all between 10-15 minutes of waiting times. You also don’t have the feeling that the doctors are very pushy and want to have you out within 5 minutes of their time.

A checkup is done very thorough and in an individual manner.

The stuff is generally friendly and genuinely interested in your well-being.

2. Low Costs of Generic and Branded Medicine

Most medicines can be bought here without prescriptions either right in your local pharmacy or ordered by them if not in stock. Goa is dotted with thousands of pharmacies at every corner. Again the tourist areas from Candolim to Baga have the highest density of pharmacies, while I found Mapusa further to the north-east the best stocked.

The best thing: prices for medicines are fixed! So you don’t have to haggle like with everything else in India. Prices are printed on the boxes of medicines and that’s exactly what you pay. Not more, not less.

Be prepared to get great bargains on most branded medicine and pay next to nothing for generics. Whenever I visited a pharmacy here, they are packed with Brits and other Europeans, buying huge numbers of boxes with all kinds of pain killers, anti-depressives, muscle relaxants, viagra-equivalents or whatever they get (or not) prescribed in their home countries, but have to shell out for themselves.

Another specialty: some branded items are sold here already as generics already, even though in most other countries you still can only buy the branded (more expensive) product. One example, a modern tacrolimus-based skin ointment is anywhere else in Asia only available as the branded version (Protopic) and will cost you anything from 300.000 Rupiah in Indonesia, around 1.200 Baht in Phuket, 2.150 Peso in the Philippines to 80-100 SGD in Singapore. No generics available. Buy the real thing or forget it.

Not here in India: a generic version (Tacroz Forte) costs a mere Rs 320 for 10g. That is only 20% of the price in Indonesia or Thailand, 15% of the price in the Philippines or 10% of a similar product in Singapore. Isn’t that amazing?

Talk about globalization and how you can exploit it for yourself! I found that true for other specific medicines as well.

Here are just a few examples for other more common products:

• Band Aid wash proof: Rs 20 for 10 pieces
• Immodium: Rs 20 for 10 capsules
• Paracetamol 500: Rs 14 for 10 capsules
• Vitamin B complex: Rs 15 for 10 capsules
• Topical Antibiotic Spray: Rs 195 (40g)
• Antibiotic Skin Cream: Rs 50 (10g)
• Broad Spectrum Antibiotic: Rs 50 for 10 capsules

Now I just wish, they would be able to send all those cheap medicines abroad to my next travel destinations!

1. Low Consultation and Doctor fees

The best thing at last: as with everything else in India, it pays to ‘shop around’, compare prices and get an impression of the doctor for your special surgery first, before committing to a procedure. Luckily the initial costs are very low (for dental procedures, the first checkup is generally free of charge, while for other consultations the fees are very low, see below).

Costs for surgery are generally only a small percentage to health care costs of Europe, Australia or the US. When living in Singapore I was in awe over their low health care costs compared to my home country; I even did a LASIK surgery there, saving me two thirds compared to German costs.

But for minor surgery, you could save even more, considering getting it done here in India. One example: a friend from Singapore visited us here in Goa, to get a cyst removed on her wrist. While the same surgery would have cost between SGD 1.200-1.600, the same procedure was only around SGD 300-400 here in Goa. All with similar quality, aftercare and all costs included. That is only 25% of the cost compared with Singapore, worth considering, don’t you think?

Myself I had some dental work done here in Goa, composite resin fillings and tooth cleaning, all done very professionally and on short notice.

As mentioned above, to consult a specialist, you don’t have to pay a fortune here. From my own and my friend’s experience and what other Expats told me, here are some examples of consultation fees:

• Dentist: First Consultation – free of charge
• General Practitioner: Rs 100-200 per Visit
• Dermatology: Rs 100-200 per Visit
• Orthopedist: Rs 250 per Visit

For minor surgery, like the above mentioned cyst removal, here are some example prices:

• Orthopedic Surgeon Charges: Rs 5.000 per surgery
• Anesthetic Charges, local/regional anesthetics: Rs 1.500 per surgery
• Operation Theater Charges: Rs 2.300 per surgery
• Hospital bed per day: Rs 1.000-2.500 for common ward, depending on hospital
• Hospital bed per day: Rs 3.000-5.000 for private room, depending on hospital

Here are some dental examples:

• Glass Ionomer Filling: Rs 960
• Composite Resin Filling: Rs 1.600
• Porcelain to Metal Crown: Rs 7.200-10.500
• Stellon/Fibre Glass/Travelon Dentures: Rs 12.000-24.000
• Metal/Invisible Braces: Rs 24.000-44.000

Conclusion:

Goa is an interesting location for getting your health propped up and getting those long postponed surgeries done. You have modern facilities, short waiting times and very affordable prices for procedures, hospital services and medicines. On top of that you will probably recover much faster, with a holiday in an exotic location added as a bonus.

These days with the global financial crisis upon us, prices for flights and package deals to Goa are as low as they can get. So why not trying it now to benefit from the low costs most. Maybe you can even strike a deal with your health insurance provider, either for them to cover parts of your costs or acknowledging an otherwise not possible surgery.

As with everything in India, you have to be aware of some pitfalls also: while medicine prices are generally fixed, this can’t be said about the services and hospital procedures. But there is a good competition, so look around, ask and compare prices before committing to anything. Talk to different doctors and if in doubt, stick with a larger and well-known hospital instead of a small private clinic.

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What do you think? Would you consider Goa for having minor surgery or dental services done? Can India compare with the health systems in Europe, Australia or the US? Please make use of the comment form below and share your experiences and recommendations!

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Are you an Expat, living in Asia without health insurance or a holiday maker from Europe?

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written by Chris