By: Shobha Tsering Bhalla
First published: 5 January 04, TODAY

Years ago, a friend who worked for an international airline told me about an incident that now seems apocryphal.

On a late night flight from Mumbai to London, after most passengers were settled in for the night, a passenger buzzed her for headache tablets.

She rushed to his side with a glass of water and a pill. "Oh, Indian aspirin," the man grumbled.

My friend retorted: "Oh, do you have a foreign headache, sir?"

Now thousands with ailments worse than "foreign headaches" are reaching for Indian pills.

More than 60 patients from the US and Britain were treated at the Escorts Heart Hospital in Delhi last year.

The Apollo Group of hospitals - the thirdbiggest healthcare provider in the world and the largest in Asia - has treated over 60,000 foreign patients from 34 countries in the last decade.

Half of them arrived in the last few years.

Nearly 100,000 health tourists a year arrive from the Gulf states alone.

India's private sector speciality hospitals offer treatment that meets international standards at 10 to 20 per cent of the cost of similar treatment abroad.

The average cost of an open heart surgery at the best of Indian hospitals is between $5,000 and $17,000.

The same surgery costs about $34,000 in Britain and is about $68,000 in the US.

For a non-complicated case at a top private hospital like Gleneagles Hospital, it costs at least $19,000.

In the US, a cataract operation costs $2,550. In India, it costs $20. It costs between $3,200 and $3,400 here.

No other Asian country is as well represented in the global medical industry.

There are over 35,000 highly-sought Indian doctors in the US.

Indian doctors form the backbone of Britain's National Healthcare Service (NHS).

These have helped bolster the West's confidence in India's medical system.

"Many Indian surgeons have impressive scorecards of having performed over 10,000 operations. This is an achievement difficult to aspire for in countries where patient throughputs are not large," said Mr KV Rao, managing partner of Idee Nouvelle, a Singapore-based consultancy specialising in healthcare and the life sciences.

Keen to break the logjam of over a million NHS patients on waiting lists, the British Government recently invited a team of Indian doctors to brief Prime Minister Tony Blair's medical advisers.

A solution they are considering is to fly patients to Indian hospitals.

India's healthcare sector is valued at US$17 billion ($29 billion) and accounts for four percent of the GDP.

According to a joint study by McKinsey and Company and the Confederation of Indian Industry, it is growing at 13 per cent annually and may hit US$60 billion by 2012.

New Delhi is offering incentives for investment in private hospitals.

States such as Kerala and Karnataka have had phenomenal success in promoting medical tourism with therapies like the ancient system of Ayurveda.

India's pharmaceutical industry too is blazing ahead.

At US$6.5 billion and growing at eight to 10 per cent annually, it's the fourth biggest pharmaceutical industry in the world.

India has just launched the first virtual medical university in Asia to provide web-based elearning to medical students and continuing education to healthcare workers.

Picture this: 100,000 doctors in training spread over 160 medical colleges and 400,000 medical practitioners in touch with the latest medical technology.

How can Singapore leverage on this? Experts say Singapore companies should team up with Indian firms to provide what India needs: Branding, system support, process knowledge and management expertise.

"Singapore provides excellent value and service for a niche patient population which spends a significant sum for excellent treatment, but the volumes are small.

Local companies should look at a twotier strategy: Tier one represents patients from highcost developed markets. Tier two will address the more costsensitive Indian and South Asian markets," said Mr Rao.