Delhi, capital city of the Federal Republic of India. It is one of India's fastest growing cities. Delhi- the commercial hub has many tourist attractions to offer. Visit vibrant shopping complex of Connaught Place, Delhi Haat for handicraft goods and delicious food bonanza.

Although Delhi has witnessed an unprecedented growth in health care industry, how far has the capital become successful in attracting the medical tourist to its swanky and big hospitals?. When baby Noor Fatima, a two-and-a-half- year old Pakistani girl, successfully underwent an open heart surgery in India, she opened news vistas reminding the potential of medical tourism. The Ministry of External Affairs took this opportunity to encourage medical diplomacy, by facilitating the visit of cabinet ministers and provincial leaders to India for treatment.

Medical tourism is the buzzword now. The government as well as private players are keenly assessing the potential and means to tap the same. The boom in state-of-the-art hospitals and well-qualified doctors, have attracted the patient population from neighbouring countries, the Middle East and the West.

The equation is ‘First World treatment’ at “Third World prices”. A CII-McKinsey report last year, postulating the opportunities in health tourism, states that the medical tourism market in the country pegged a 30 per cent growth in 2000 and it has been growing at the rate of 15 per cent for the past five years.

In 2002, the number of patients who visited the hospital was 3001 and about 700 were hospitalised. Along with providing treatment, the stay of the foreign patients is taken care of by the hospital itself. The group has tied up with hotels in Delhi for this purpose.

Now, to attract more people, the emphasis is on vacation plus treatment and special packages have been planned for this. On the anvil is another plan to make the patients and their relatives stay in the hospital complex with all the luxuries a hotel provides. Dr Shakti Gupta, AIIMS, stresses on the need to export health services. According to him, Indian doctors, medical services, and hospitals are at par with good hospitals in Europe and the US, so it is the right time to make the most of it.