Muscat: India’s burgeoning medical tourism sector is attracting dozens of medical tourists from Oman and the Middle East to Kerala, new statistics show.

With India holding around 18 per cent of the global US$19.7 billion medical tourism market, those figures are expected to rise to as much as 205 by the year 2020, as more people choose India for their medical needs.

Kerala and Oman exemplify this booming industry, with the Meitra Hospital in Calicut maintaining a 72 per cent occupancy rate of patients from since opening its doors in October 2017.

In a statement shared with the Times of Oman, the hospital said, “Since we opened the Meitra Hospital back in October 2017, we have had close to 270 patients from our Medical Tourism Base.”

About 72 per cent of its medical tourism patients, amounting to 194 people, were from Oman. “We are also seeing a growth of 25-30 per cent in the number of patients on a month-on-month basis from the GCC region.

Elective and semi-elective surgeries are the most popular, especially for bone and joint care such as knee replacement, spine surgery, cardiac surgery, among others,” the statement said.

Kerala welcomed over 1.4 million visitors last year alone, up from 1.3 million the previous year, according to the Indian state’s tourism department.

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