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Chennai emerges as top medical
tourism destination

      Chennai: Chennai is proving to be the Mecca of medical tourism owing not just to its world class facilities and services but also due to the cost factor. "We've come to India because here we can get top class healthcare at a fraction of what it costs elsewhere.Trinidad is 20,000 dollars, Canada is 60,000 dollars, America is 100,000 dollars and England is 100,000 pounds," said Varshnie Jagdeo, Guyana's First Lady. Varshnie Jagdeo has come to Chennai with 13 children and four adults for life saving surgical treatments subsidised by the Frontier Lifeline Hospitals in Chennai.These patients have arrived here under the aegis of the First Lady's charitable initiative called "Kids First Fund". "My problem was a heart problem.It was damaged.I felt comforting after coming here.Everything is okay now, the operation was successfull and everything is okay,"said Curtis Nestor, a patient from Guyana. Annand Victor Ramdin, a US based Guyanese a world ranking sportsperson has donated 100,000 dollars to the first lady's charitable venture. "We've had patients from the same country earlier too, who've got back with extremely satisfied results and good services, which is why they come back again.Cost factor is also another thing. It is much cheaper. It is one tenth of what they would've spent in other places like the US. They are very happy here.We've operated about 75 percent of the cases. Everybody would recover in a week's time and they'll all get back by the 15th of this month," said Dr. Padmanabhan. The size of the Indian medical tourism sector is assessed to be about 1,00,000 to 1,50,000 patients a year. With increased activity to build hospitals by the corporate sector, the influx of foreign patients have increased significantly.
-June 13,  2006

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