Once renowned as a mystical land of spices, herbs, and mysticism, India is currently recognized for its overpopulated terrain, mostly consisting of impoverished rural components. India’s controversial media debut began with overpopulation issues. In 2006, India’s population was estimated at 1,095,352,000, 32 percent whom subside below poverty, thus creating an unprecedented 3 million people whom exist in complete dearth. Additionally, India has also undergone extreme criticism for its overwhelming tolerance for prostitution, including child prostitution. Poor women in India are deemed burdens if not married off.
In wedding young girls, it diminishes a burden from the family and provides a wife for another. However, if girls are not married off, continuing to support them is more challenging than encouraging. In fact, many families have admitted to selling young unwed children to prostitution houses, girls as young as 8, in order to sustain their homes while simultaneously providing a haven for their daughters. Furthermore, prostitution has been projected as the core origin for the growing HIV/AIDS outbreaks that have infected more than 3 million people throughout India.
Despite India’s negative press for HIV, prostitution, overpopulation and poverty, it has presented positives for those outside of its society. In addition to India’s ailing natives at the dispose of HIV and other diseases such as malaria, India is also much below development as a country as a whole. Majority of India’s population consists of rural areas without running water, access to medical care, and lack of transportation to urban areas which would inevitably grant access to needed essentials.
All of these conditions allow India to persevere as a developing nation, however, despite India’s developing stature, the nation has something to offer that other advanced nations such as The United States and Europe cannot offer their citizens; Affordable healthcare. Currently, India is engaged in the billion dollar medical tourism industry, providing cost-effective healthcare while concurrently maintaining the quality of care.
Even though India is a developing nation, many Americans are still willing to go abroad for medical surgery because of the well-educated professionals, reduced cost of medical procedures, bypass of organ donor lists and state of the art facilities. Medical tourism, technically defined as “provision of ‘cost effective’ treatment in collaboration with the tourism industry for patients needing survival and other forms of specialized treatment” (“Medical Tourism”), is the most innovative integration of tourism in tandem with medicine, both beneficial by health and by way of recreation.
Millions of people throughout the globe partake in traveling for business as well as for recreational purposes. In fact, tourism across the world has amplified almost 10 percent to the overall global economy as well as increasing employment by over 221 million jobs in health sects (“Medical Tourism”). Additionally, medical advances have also provided a leading healthcare industry in all global markets spanning from the United States to Europe, even to some portions of South America. Moreover, the integration of these two affluent markets is now being incorporated to form a new sect of businesses for engaged countries throughout the world.
Medical tourism is currently used to accommodate a variety of persons whom seek affordable healthcare. For instance, the current plastic surgery craze in the United States has sparked the need for affordable procedures in tandem with qualified physicians. Countries such as Brazil has tapped into the niche market, offering procedures such as rhinoplasty, dermal fillers for HIV/AIDS atrophy, liposuction, dental implants, as well as the country’s signature Brazilian butt lift. All of these procedures have been offered at affordable prices, which keeps a constant flux of Americans into the country.
Standard liposuction package for a female between the ages of 20 to 30 is approximately $1,300 USD versus the United States’ liposuction at approximately $4,000. Lower Medical costs is the targeted rationale behind India’s booming medical tourism industry. Medical tourism is expected to climb to over $2. 3 billion in India by 2012 (Gentleman). In the United States, thousands of people die while waiting for organs on the national waiting list. As of May 1st 2008, 95,134 people unwearyingly await in anticipation of becoming the next person to receive an eligible donor match.
“In 2005, more than 16,000 kidney transplants were performed in the US, an increase of 45 percent over 10 years. But in that time, the number of people on a kidney waiting list rose by 119 percent” (Datta). India, with its black market for organ donors, is the most optimistic hope for desperate driven foreigners seeking treatment. Under a 1994 act that banned the open trade of organs, organ transplants were to only be exchanged between direct relatives such as brothers, sisters, fathers, sons etc.
However, based upon ambiguity in the law, Vineet Chawdhry, secretary of Ministry of health, states that “There’s a clause in the law that permits unrelated donors to donate live kidneys, for reasons of ‘affection and attachment and this is where black marketers can enter” (Datta). There are many people both in India and the United States that do not have family members whom qualify as a organ donors, thus this loop-hole in Indian law allows for many people to attempt the risky feat of attaining organs through India’s black market.
This allows desperate patients an alternative to organ donor waiting lists. Physicians like Dr. Amit Kumar, surgeon and illegal organ kingpin, who has been attributed to 500 illegal transplant procedures in India, make it possible for foreigners to obtain organs illegally out of despondency. As the rise rich patients of the west intertwined with sheer desolation, availability of organs will continue just as doctors whom are willing to perform the transplants.