The lecture given by Dr. Praveen Kulkarni, MD Assistant professor at JSS Medical College Department of Community Medicine in Mysore, on May 12th was a continuation of the introduction to India’s health care system. The overall focus of the lecture was to introduce students to India’s healthcare system in order to gain familiarity with it to understand the arrangement of the healthcare system and how accessible it is to the community, both in rural and urban areas. However, the remaining portion of the lecture touched on medical tourism and the indigenous system of medicine, which includes Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH). I chose to discuss this lecture because my interest is on Ayurveda.

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Beginning with medical tourism, Dr. Kulkarni informed that India has become a major destination for such practice. He further explained that this is because high quality of care and service, affordability, and immediate service provided to foreign patients. According to Dogra and Dogra (2015), in India medical tourism has increased from 2.2% in 2009 to 5.6% in 2014. It was also found that, besides the reasons mention by Dr. Kulkarni, medical tourist chose India as their destination for possibility of leisure tourism after their procedure has been completed, along with availability of competent facilities, technology & medical staff. Another attractive feature is accessibility of indigenous medicine that may not be available or authentic in western countries (Dogra & Dogra, 2015).

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In a review on altering the paradigm on how medical tourism should be arranged by Majeed, Lu and Javed (2017), reasons as to why people seek medical tourism is more centered towards promoting health and well-being along with curative reasons rather than purely curative, as it was thought to be. Therefore, it is explained that it would be beneficial to provide both allopathic care and traditional and complementary medicine (T&CM) for traveling patients, in a scheme they call the Medical Tourism and Treatment Motivation (MTTM) model (Majeed, Lu and Javed, 2017). India would be perfect for such a scheme due to their availability of indigenous medicine. According to Dr. Kulkarni, in India AYUSH services are integrated into the national healthcare system therefore a patient can decide whether he/she would want allopathic care or ayurvedic care when stepping into a primary health center. These services are also available for medical tourist, as explained by an Ayurvedic physician when I visited JSS Ayurvedic Hospital.

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Dr. Kulkarni also mentions that there has been a revitalization of Ayurveda. According to Sen and Chakraborty (2017), in 2003 the Ministry AYUSH was established to promote and standardize all aspects relating to indigenous medicine in India and in foreign countries. Currently, the ministry is working to better its service in urban areas by improving the quality of its medication, accessibility and affordability for those who cannot access allopathic care along with bettering the use of infrastructures and expanding its reach to rural areas by providing AYUSH medication kits to Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) for pre and post-natal care (Sen and Chakraborty, 2017). This would be exceptionally beneficial being that 70% of India’s population lives in villages. However, there are a few issues that impedes further promotion and advancement of AYUSH. Such hinderances mentioned by Sen and Chakraborty all center around the inadequacies in the production of the herbal medication. Lack of clinical trials on herbal medications, which leads to inadequate awareness in proper use and interaction of medicinal plants, and an overall absence of personnel devoted to the appropriate cultivation of these plants are factors that contribute to advancement of AYUSH (Sen and Chakraborty, 2017).

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Nonetheless, the Ministry of AYUSH was created in order to research indigenous systems of medicine and foster awareness, therefore these issues can be resolved by conducting research on the efficacy of these plants, it is just a matter of allocation of funding. However, in comparison to what I experienced when visiting JSS Ayurveda Hospital, the staff emphasized on the importance of studying the chemical compositions of all plants being used for medicinal purposes. Also, when touring the Ayurvedic college campus, next to the hospital, multiple labs were dedicated to examining herbal composition and other botany and agriculture related subjects. Overall, my perception of my field experience in the Ayurvedic hospital does not match the complaints listed in the articles I have read, although I do agree with the necessity of further research. But with all being said, promotion of indigenous medicine in addition with allopathic care seems like a promising proposal for the already booming medical tourism in India, which may also lend itself into resolving some of the issues pertaining to effectiveness of Ayurvedic medication.