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HYDERABAD, INDIA, February 16, 2005: A reversal of medical tourism now has Americans making a beeline for India, seeking the latest and cheaper treatments, begins this article. Until recently, it was the other way round, with Indians rushing to the US for better cure facilities. However, with the state-of-the-art medical procedures, equipment and facilities now available in India, patients from developed countries like Canada and Britain are flocking to Indian hospitals. The Indian medical fraternity, conquered the “final frontier” when Americans, too, started coming here for the latest medical procedures, which are either not available in their country or are much more expensive.



For example, Robert Walter Beeney was unable to walk due to a stiff hip when he landed in India January 24. Twenty days later, he recovered after a rare hip replacement surgery at Apollo Hospital. The 64-year-old real estate consultant from San Francisco underwent successful surface replacement surgery using the anatomic surface replacement (ASR) hip system January 27, reportedly becoming the first US national to come to India for the treatment. A team of doctors carried out the procedure for Beeney. Jayaramchander Pingle, a member of the medical team, told a news conference Tuesday that while in the conventional hip replacement surgery, the total hip was replaced, in the new system, the patient’s original head and neck of femur were preserved and only their surface is replaced with metal on metal articulation.



Beeney, who came to know about the procedure in India through the Internet, said that since this was not yet cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration, he decided to come here. The treatment in India cost him US$6,600 while the same as a part of a clinical trial in the US would have cost $24,000. Sangita Reddy, executive director of Apollo Hospitals, hoped that doors of the $1.7 trillion US healthcare industry would now open for Indian hospitals. While the patients from Afro-Asian countries, the Middle East, Canada, Britain and other parts of the worlds had been coming to India, Beeney’s case was significant as he chose India after a thorough research, she added.

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