International patients with congenital heart disease: what brings them to India?

Indian Heart Journal
Sunita MaheshwariO F Njokanma

Abstract

Factors that have led to the increasing popularity of medical travel include the high cost of healthcare, long wait times for certain procedures, the ease and affordability of international travel, and improvements in both technology and standards of care in many countries. The present study aims to elaborate the factors that attract international cardiac patients to India, to document the proportion of the admissions into the paediatric cardiac ward who are international patients, and to identify the sources of funding of the international patients. This was a prospective, cross-sectional, and analytical study carried out between May 2009 and October 2009 in the paediatric cardiac care unit of a large tertiary care cardiac centre in India paediatric wards. Structured questionnaires were administered. A total of 1372 patients were admitted during the study period, of which 155 (11.3%) were patients from countries outside India. Majority of the patients were from Malaysia (45%), Nigeria (23%), and Tanzania (15%). The age ranged from 1 month to 39 years with an average of 61 months. The male to female ratio was 1:1.4 and the majority of subjects (72.5%) were in social classes 3 and 4. cheaper cost and better expertise was the pro...Continue Reading

Citations

Jun 6, 2012·Indian Heart Journal·Narayan Bahadur Basnet
Sep 28, 2015·BMC Health Services Research·Mariyam SuzanaVirasakdi Chongsuvivatwong
Mar 1, 2016·Acta Radiologica·Richard C SemelkaJorge Elias
Dec 1, 2017·World Journal for Pediatric & Congenital Heart Surgery·Ekanem N EkureUNKNOWN Nigerian Pediatric Cardiology Study Group

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