GURGAON, India -- The foreign patients section at the towering glass and chrome Medanta Medicity hospital in Gurgaon is not unlike the arrivals lounge of a busy international airport. Patients from all over the world flock here for treatment, drawn by the value for money offered by Indian hospitals.
At this 17-hectare multi-specialty site in India's National Capital Region, the privately owned medical group Global Health Pvt. offers 1,250 beds and more than 45 operating theatres. Cardiac surgery costs $6,000 compared to $20,000 in Russia, while a liver transplant that would cost more than $200,000 in the U.S. can be had for $14,000. Robotic knee surgery, a cutting-edge procedure, costs just $10,000 in India but upward of $80,000 in the Middle East and Australia.
