Health Tourism, Public Health Policy and Equity

This piece in The Hindu considers the various conflicting priorities that India has to reconcile for expansion of healthcare access, and the ethics of profit-seeking medical tourism in a country with a neglected public health system.


The healthcare tourism conundrum

Prabhudev Konana

Governments should have no role in promoting healthcare tourism since it negatively impacts the people they are supposed to represent. And the private sector needs self-regulation.

BUSINESS EDUCATION increasingly relies on case studies to develop managerial skills. Students often debate complex situations with different viewpoints, ethical dilemmas or social, environmental, and political ramifications. Here is a complex case for such a debate involving healthcare tourism. The entrepreneurs, medical community, and government agencies have to make choices that touch the national conscience. To what extent should Indian entrepreneurs and the medical community promote medical tourism? Should the government play any role in encouraging medical tourism?

http://www.hindu.com/2006/11/24/stories/2006112402361000.htm