Over 5L med travellers visit India

5L means 5 Lakh. The Indian system of counting large numbers is distinct from that familiar to most people in the West with thousands, millions, etc. In India you'll see lakh (100,000) and crore (10,000,000) used everywhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_numbering_system

Assembly line eye surgeries in India - http://96.0.107.6/?q=node/view/1829

I've read elsewhere that many medical students intern at Aravind Eye hospital simply because they can see and treat more cases of a rare disease in one week than they could in years in the developing world.

India has the potential to become the Medical tourist capital of the world. And as with everything else here, there are hospitals which treat the ultra-wealthy at international standard with the latest technology, and absolute hell-holes catering to the poorest destitutes. They may even be neighbours.

The entire system is very screwed up by the pathetically low number of doctors (per capita) we produce every year on the one hand, the vanishingly small number of openings for MDs, and the ridiculously small pay for a doctor without an MD degree. A friend of mine has been trying without success for 4 years to get an MD position.

Medical tourists are good and bad. Good because of the forex inflow. Bad because they take away meager domestic capacity.

How many medical tourists are people with no connection to the host country purely there to find cheap care? My impression is that medical tourism is more talked about in America than practiced.

The subtext to healthcare discussions in the US always seems to be that no matter how bad things are in America, healthcare elsewhere must be a disaster. Also, Americans either have health insurance or they tend not to be in a position to pay at all, even if the procedure is significantly less expensive than at home.

interesting. is it time to develop efficient medical apps?

Unfortunately, the article fails to list the origin of these travelers. I suspect most are from the developing countries in the area.

[One exception may be the "baby production industry". India provides inexpensive surrogacy services. Some call this an "industry"...]