Medical Tourism and Inequity in India

Kristen Smith is senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne.

Kristen Smith has written a penetrating analysis revealing that medical tourism constitutes one more example of the unequal economic relationships between the Global North and the Global South. She argues that the while the medical tourist industry bills itself as a strategy for overcoming deficiencies in failing public health systems in countries like India, the juxtaposition of luxurious settings of international patient suites in corporate and even public hospitals and overcrowded and dilapidated wards of public hospitals belie this assertion. Sadly, the COVID-19 pandemic in recent years also poignantly illustrates the health divide between the affluent and the poor of the world system.

• Introduction: Tensions, Conflicts and Contradictions Chapter 1: ‘First World Treatment at Third World Prices’ Chapter 2: Medical Tourism and the Hyper-commodification of Healthcare Chapter 3: The Intersections of Tourism and Health: The Marketization of Medical Tourism Chapter 4: Places in Peril: Medical Tourism and the Transitioning of Trust Chapter 5: Mobility, Identity and the Global Imaginary: The Worlding of the Healthcare Workforce Chapter 6: The Structural Violence of Medical Tourism: Gated Enclaves and Health Exclusion Conclusion