Rabia Manzoor , Dr. Shehryar Khan Toru and Dr. Vaqar Ahmed
Abstract
Recently, health tourism has gained a lot of importance in South Asia as numerous people
across the world acquire medical care in countries such as Pakistan and India. Health tourism is
defined as patients and public traveling abroad for seeking quality and affordable medical
treatment which is often not available in their home country. Literature on health tourism engages
with different dimensions of health trade such as, cross-border movement of people but hardly
reflect on the nature of obstacles people face in obtaining health care. By focusing on health
tourism, this study explores key challenges and potential benefits of health trade between India
and Pakistan. The study considers the perception and opinion of doctors, private sector
organizations, state officials, businessmen and traders in Pakistan as primary sources of knowing
the bottlenecks in undertaking and promoting cross-border trade in health sector. The patients in
Pakistan seeking medical treatment in India encounter; informational, financial and visa related
problems. These patients heavily rely on informal channels in acquiring visa which leads to
frustration, delays and financial obligations of uncertain nature. The prevailing inhospitable and
security situation also discourages movement of doctors and patients across the border. The study
also notes that variants of health sector trade between the two countries have also not received
adequate attention in policy circles.