Two Visits: A Modern Wellness Center and an Antiquated Post Office

I stood outside of a spanking new medical clinic just a few blocks from our residence hotel and took a photo of the modern exterior. Suddenly, one of the Manipal Cure and Care Center’s marketing executives was at my side inviting me to take a tour of the 3-month-old facility. From the modern reception desk to the pediatric clinic, the place is glistening, modern, and high tech. All of the doctors and technicians are attractive, smiling, and friendly.


And the prices are shockingly inexpensive considering what we are used to in the U.S. The Mother’s Day special, available throughout the month of May, offered 13 tests, including a mammogram, Pap smear, ultrasound, and EKG for $25 US (normal price: $112 US.) Although many other services are available, the center is clearly geared for India’s medical tourism. The facility has strong departments for patients seeking cosmetic surgery, dentistry, and eye care.



A web site I found on medical tourism describes it as a worldwide, multibillion-dollar industry. An intriguing possibility comes from South Africa, specializing in medical safaris. Patients visit the country for a safari, with a stopover for plastic surgery, a nose job and a chance to see lions and elephants.



From the same site: “India is considered the leading country promoting medical tourism-and now it is moving into a new area of ‘medical outsourcing,’ where subcontractors provide services to the overburdened medical care systems in western countries." http://www.indiamedicaltourism.net/medical_tourism_india_medical_tourism/index.html


"Government and private sector studies in India estimate that medical tourism could bring between $1 billion and $2 billion US into the country by 2012. The reports estimate that medical tourism to India is growing by 30 per cent a year. Western patients usually get a package deal that includes flights, transfers, hotels, treatment and often a post-operative vacation.”


A visit to an Indian post office showed the opposite side of the coin. Indian postage stamps still do not have sticky backs so customers have to wipe messy glue from little pots on the back of the stamps with dead ball point pens. There is always a queue and only one or two people doing any work. A supervisor consistently sits a distance from the counter, surveying the entire operation but not lifting a finger to help.


I needed to send some books to the United States and, to her credit, the one person who was actually doing something helped me redo the package so it could be sent book rate. String was needed to make the change. She told me I could get some in the back room, dark and cavernous, with two bored looking postal employees who seemed shocked at my entering their inner sanctum. One of them pointed to a couple of pieces of used string sitting on a counter and my mission was accomplished. Though not easy, I had successfully survived a visit to an Indian post office. The experience was not much different from my first encounter, 22 years ago.