Medical Tourism in Tamil Nadu

TamilNadu Medical Tourism News Updates

6 January 2007

The Apollo Centre of Excellence for Women is the first hospital in India to cater to specific healthcare needs of women from the prenatal to menopausal and geriatric phase. Sankara Nethralaya has a worldwide reputation for excellent diagnostic and curative care in ophthalmology.Cochlear implant, a pioneering field, is being done at Dr Mohan Kameswaran's Madras ENT Research Foundation. It is equipped with a language and voice laboratory.

Many state-of-the-art hospitals like Rammachandra, MMM, Frontline, Vijaya and MIOT provide modern treatment backed by cutting edge medical expertise in cardiology, minimal invasive procedures, neurology, spine and joint replacements, cosmetic reconstructive surgery, cancer, reproductive and paediatric specialties. Super specialties like stem cell transplant ,the first in India, goes into operation at the Sri Ramachandra Medical College Hospital in the coming weeks. The cost is, of course rather expensive. Still, as compared with the global prices, it is still very cheap. Hospitals like MIOT offer comfortable quarters for the family to stay while the patient undergoes treatment.

20 July 2007

Apollo Speciality Hospital at Chennai has successfully performed an 'unrelated cord blood transplant' on a eight-old Ugandan boy suffering from Fanconi Anaemia. This curative therapy is widely done in the West for patients suffering from leukamia, thalassaemia and aplastic anaemia.This is the first time it is being done in the country. The procedure which costs a million dollars in the U.S. cost just $100000 in India, which is about one-tenth of the cost of the cost in the U.S.

5 October 2007

Indonesia is interested in having a tie-up with Tamil Nadu in the area of Medical Tourism and has requested the Government to organize a medical tourism fair at Jakarta with participation from the super specialty hospitals of the state. At present, the high spending medical tourists from Indonesia visit Singapore for treatment. Singapore is more expensive than India representatives from Egypt, South Africa, Malaysia and Singapore have also expressed their desire to have such tie-ups with Tamil Nadu for mutual tourism promotion.

11 November 2007

A health city catering to healthcare ,medical education and research is coming up on a 100-acre property situated on the IT-corridor. The Chettinad Health City (CHC) promoted by the Rajah Muthiah Chettiar Charitable Trust will totally cost about Rs 500 crores. The first phase costing about Rs 250 crores is ready and will be inaugurated by the TN CM on 15 November.

The CHC aims to offer the entire gamut of healthcare facilities under one roof. It will be an integrated centre for clinical and wellness services ,medical education, research an health Information technology. it will be a referral hospital offering heart surgery using robot assisted minimally invasive procedures, renal transport, mother and child care, assisted fertilisation methods, cardio vascular care and telemedicine. Research in stem cell therapy and immuno- modulation will also be carried out here at the health city.

It will also have other urban facilities like auditoriums, restaurants, shopping malls, ATMs, gyms, and playgrounds.

22 November 2007

A health village for medicare and research will come up in Elavur near Chennai. It will serve as a hub for medicare and medical research in South Asia. It will be a joint venture between the Frontier Lifeline Hospitals promoted by Dr K M Cherian and the TN State Governement. The total project cost is about Rs 450 crores. The village is to named Frontier Mediville and the entire project will be completed in three phases. It will have a modern medical science park which will facilitate research in basic ad applied sciences, a multi-speciality 1000-bed hospital, units of Indian system of medicine and a medical university. it will be first bio-hospital in the country combining advanced clinical practices with holistic therapy. Frontier Mediville will also have biomedical corridor for the manufacture of consumables, disposables and pharmaceutical products. In short, the hospital will generate products needed for its smooth running.it will also cater to the export market.

The medical university would include a regional centre for nursing and paramedical training and will be run in collaboration with the Edward Dunlop Health Foundation, Australia.A herbarium will also be developed on collaboration with the Korean Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology and the Asia pacific Bio-Resources Consortium. It will grow medicinal plants and develop genetically engineered strains from which molecules would be extracted for therapeutic treatment. It will also serve as a holistic healing centre for medical tourists.

The village will also have a helipad, a railway station and a bus terminus. Elavur is located off the NH 5.

4 January 2020 - 2023

Chennai's Jeevan Blood Bank will soon start a stem cell bank. Jeevan has been running a blood bank for the past 12 years. The bank will start functioning from March 2020 - 2023.It will collect cord blood from willing donors, harvest stem cells, test for diseases and infections, store and distribute for stem cell transplant. Stem cells can cure a variety of diseases including thalassemia, and blood cancer.

The bank will store around 40000 units of stem cells collected from umbilical cord blood for five years. While 70% of the capacity is for public storage,30% will be for private use, for which a small fee will be collected. The bank proposes to co-ordinate closely with international agencies and will create a donor database by December 2020 - 2023.

20 July 2020 - 2023

The famous MIOT Hospital in Chennai recently opened a exclusive centre of excellence for Nephrology. The MIOT Hospital of Nephrology will cater exclusively to patients with renal problems.

9 August 2020 - 2023

Chennai is already considered the Mecca of Medical Tourism. To reinforce this belief further, the modern Chettinad Health City Hospital has recently acquired a robot for a staggering amount of Rs 60 crores. With the help of this robot, Dr Ravikumar of this hospital proposes to conduct intricate heart surgeries. Considered as one among the top surgeons in the country, he is a pioneer in the art of using a robot for complicated surgeries .Dr Ravikumar has trained extensively in this field abroad. The advantages of using a robot for heart surgery are many; smaller incision leading to faster recovery, lesser pain, less loss of blood. The scar left after the surgery is consequently very small. The cost of the surgery is the same as the usual heart surgery

16 August 2020 - 2023

A new method of treatment uterine-fibroid related infertility in women will soon be available in Chennai. Madras Medical Mission (MMM) will soon launch magnetic Resonance (MR) focused ultrasound surgery which is currently available only in a few hospitals across the world. This type of treatment will be the first for a hospital in Asia. This treatment provides infertility experts with a safe and effective procedure to remove uterine fibroids that prevent conception. The facility will be available at the Institute of reproductive medicine at the MMM by the end of 2020 - 2023.This non invasive technique is a vast improvement over the conventional scalpel method that may leave some scar or raise some complications that may hamper pregnancy at a later date.