Obaidullah Junaid, Co-founder, Healthtrip says, BD among top five markets for its number of medical travellers

Dhaka : Medical travel has become a global phenomenon now. Bangladeshi patients are now seeking medical treatment abroad, in nearby countries that are renowned for healthcare like Thailand, India, Turkey, Singapore and Malaysia. In this regard, Healthtrip.com, one of the world's largest medical travel platforms, works as a one-stop solution to these medical travellers from Bangladesh.

Obaidullah Junaid, Co-founder, Healthtrip, said this while talking to The Bangladesh Monitor.

Established in 2018, Healthtrip, based in India, has been offering all sorts of medical travel services to Bangladeshis, ensuring an end-to-end seamless journey to destination countries like India, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

On their platform, medical travellers from Bangladesh can find best doctors, free text consultations, video consultation, make appointments and process visa, book flights and hotels, avail health insurance, interpreter services and health benefits, to any country they wish to visit for healthcare purposes.

In the coming days, Healthtrip will also add Singapore and Malaysia as destination countries, said Junaid.

Lionshare of Bangladeshi patients prefer to go to India and Thailand for healthcare purposes. However, India was the no 1 destination for Bangladeshi medical travellers until recently when Thailand took over the no 1 spot.

Lately, it is taking two months to get a medical visa to India while Thailand offers a medical visa in 3-4 working days. Hence, there has been a major shift in movement of Bangladeshi medical travellers as they are now choosing Thailand over India, informed Junaid.

Junaid mentioned Healthtrip is serving 100 Bangladeshi patients a month, making the country one of its top five markets following Middle Eastern and CIS countries.

Healthtrip is also in discussion with the renowned hospitals of Bangladesh to integrate them in the platform so that travellers from other countries can visit Bangladesh for medical treatments if they wish.

This will allow Healthtrip to offer domestic medical travel services to patients in Bangladesh as well, Junaid said, adding, they plan to introduce domestic medical travel services by end of 2023.

Healthtrip has also launched a mobile app to better facilitate Bangladeshi medical travellers. It may be mentioned here that travellers or patients do not need to pay any additional charge for availing the services of Healthtrip.