At the Africa Healthcare Summit in London last week, representatives from the continent discussed issues facing sub-Saharan Africa ­– that all healthcare stakeholders need to work together to provide quality care, that infrastructure needs improving and that Indian groups like Apollo and Fortis cannot continue poaching patients from Africa.

Medical tourism is a hot topic all over the Developing World, and in Africa it’s seen as a way to boost healthcare economies and stimulate market growth. Or it would be, if India’s biggest hospital chains Apollo and Fortis stop “aggressively marketing” their services across Africa and whisking away potential patients, says Jeff Coxon from the Medical Tourism Association.

According to experts, Apollo and Fortis were enamoured with a 2007 Deloitte report on the future on medical tourism that painted a peachy picture of jumbo jets transporting thousands of patients to India. So they built massive, 1,000 bed hospitals to deal with anticipated demand. But the crash happened, and now they are massively underused and average bed occupancy rates are 10-15%.

To boost these numbers, India has gone to Africa to lure patients. And it’s working – an estimated 80% of 18,000 outbound Kenyan patients go to India, resulting in a loss of around 10bn Kenyan shillings ($109m) every year, according to Dr Jacqueline Kitulu, vice president of the Kenya Medical Association.

Keeping medical tourists local is a key strategy for several African countries – Rwanda and Kenya are looking to be regional hubs. Tunisia is already a leader, with 4% of GDP coming from medical tourism every year. Dr Amin Zargouni, director of Tunis clinic St Augustin, says that even the Arab Spring didn’t stop the market and that the number of Europeans coming to Tunisia is stable, but they are looking for more African patients to make the journey north.

African countries need to understand patient demands and match the 5* service that Apollo can provide – airport shuttles, mobile phones on arrival and a holiday vibe. It’ll be interesting to see if Africa can tap into the market in the same way.

rhiannon@healthcarebusinessinternational.com