| Singapore
There is more
to Singapore than just being a honeymoon destination. The
tiny island of Singapore, having a populace of 4.4 million,
is fast positioning itself as a medical tourism hub. Attracting
about 200,000 overseas patients every year, Singapore Medicine,
a multi-agency government initiative, is strategising to increase
the number manifold. The authorities are ambitious of serving
one million foreign patients annually by 2012 and generate
USD 3 billion in revenue.
The private sector hospitals here are
the true centres of excellence known for providing world class
treatment and having state-of-the-art infrastructure and the
best possible medical expertise, avers a Mumbai-based doctor
undergoing training at Gleneagles hospital.
Parkway hospitals is Singapore’s
largest private healthcare group in Asia, owning three tertiary
care private hospitals: East Shore, Gleneagles and Mount Elizabeth.
The magnificent façade of these hospitals are complemented
by equally competent doctors and excellent services with world
class equipment. Comprehensive patient care and treatment
of a wide array of ailments is the hallmark of these hospitals,
thus attracting patients from southeast Asia and Middle East.
Incidentally, quite a few patients come from India for liver
transplant. Nitin Saxena, who brought his father all the way
from Delhi to Gleneagles for a liver transplant, opines unlike
Indian hospitals, the services and facilities value for money.
The Living Donor Liver Transplant (LDLT) programme at Gleneagles
gets 80 per cent of patients from overseas. The centre, head
by world renowned transplant and hepatobiliary surgeon Dr
KC Tan, performs both living as well as cadaveric liver transplants.
The popularity of the programme lies in the fact that unlike
India, Singapore law allows transplants in situations where
there is an emotional link between the donor and recipient.
The ethics committee within the hospital reviews every case
and makes its recommendations to the Ministry of Health, informs
Dr Tan.
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