New Delhi, Jan 20 (PTI) Medical value travel plays a crucial role in eliminating healthcare disparities across the globe and through the first Health Working Group meeting, India’s G20 presidency aims at an impetus to create pathways to bridge this gap, Dr V K Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog, said on Friday.

Speaking on the closing day of the three-day meeting of the Health Working Group of the G20 at Thiruvananthapuram, Paul said medical value travel could be focused on maintaining, improving or restoring health through medical interventions.

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“There is a great opportunity for utilising traditional medical practices like Ayurveda in the medical value travel sector, which is witnessing a combined annual growth rate of over 23 per cent,” he said.

At the same time, Paul also elaborated on the need to build a resilient and sustainable medical value travel framework, according to a statement issued by the health ministry.

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Paul said medical value travel could be focused on maintaining, improving or restoring health through medical interventions, instead of the common practice of visiting another country to seek medication.

“It can be achieved by providing access to quality and cost-effective medical care, transparent pricing, seamless travel to medical value travel destinations, attainment of universal health coverage and ensuring a low waiting time for medical treatment,” he pointed out.

Paul also highlighted four key enablers to achieve universal health coverage — incorporating digitisation and technology advancements, renewing the focus on holistic healing through integrated healthcare offerings, ensuring effective quality assurance through regulation, standardisation, accreditation and streamlining of institutional procedures and forming partnerships among the stakeholders for a convergence of health, hospitality and travel services.

Stressing the need for strengthening the ecosystem for medical value travel, he underscored the importance of effective governance and a policy framework, including the setting up of a dedicated board and an agency for medical value travel, the statement said.

Paul stressed the need for developing standards and accreditation for healthcare facilities and medical travel facilitators and called for enabling digitisation in the medical value travel segment.

He further highlighted the need for ensuring the availability of medical insurance portability and a coverage of traditional systems of medicine under insurance policies at the international level, enhancing accessibility and patient experience through a liberalised visa policy and improved air connectivity and capacity building of healthcare enterprises and staff.

Paul emphasised that to enhance the attractiveness of a destination, it is important to create an ecosystem of quality, affordability, expertise in healthcare services, low waiting time for treatment, ease of communication, incorporation of technological advancements and ensure the availability of medical insurance, the statement said.

In this regard, he urged the G20 member countries to make synergised efforts towards achieving universal health coverage, form sustainable collaborations between governments, industry, academia and experts to make healthcare and wellness services accessible, improve the utilisation of the available resources across the globe and create a resilient medical value travel ecosystem to ensure equitable access to affordable and quality healthcare without financial hardships to people across national borders.

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