Pahalgam may spell end of medical tourism from Pakistan | India News

NEW DELHI: Security tensions and terror attacks on India have been taking a heavy toll on Pakistani patients desperate for advanced treatment across the border with the issuance of visas crashing from over 1,600 in 2016 to barely over 200 in 2024. It could shudder to a halt altogether after the latest terrorist atrocity.
A significant disruption came in 2017 with the clash over Indian citizen Kulbhushan Jadhav, whom Pakistan had convicted as an Indian spy, refusing to release him despite a full-blown diplomatic crisis and India urging his release.
The medical visas issued to Pakistani nationals in 2016 were 1,678, but the number fell sharply after the Jadhav episode.
However, things got complicated further in 2019 as India was rocked by the Pulwama terror attack which brought the two countries to the brink of an armed confrontation. Between 2019 and 2024, data available with TOI shows, only 1,228 medical visas were issued to Pakistani nationals – 554 in 2019, 97 in 2020, 96 in 2021, 145 in 2022, 111 in 2023 and 225 in 2024.
In the wake of fresh escalation in the already fraught relationship following the Pahalgam terror attack, healthcare industry experts say the latest tit-for-tat measures between the two countries may sound the death of medical tourism from Pakistan to India, at least in the foreseeable future. Medical visas issued to Pakistani nationals will be valid only till 29 April 2025, the ministry of external affairs announced last Thursday in the wake of the Pahalgam attack.
In the aftermath of sentencing of Jadhav in 2017, govt had announced new rules for issuance of medical visas to Pakistani nations which mandated a recommendation letter from adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs, to process genuine and urgent cases.
“Patients from Pakistan used to visit India mostly for advanced surgeries such as liver transplant and treatment of birth defects that aren’t widely available in their country and would cost a lot in other developed nations such as the US or the UK. But in the last six to seven years, the numbers have reduced drastically and now after the Pahalgam incident it is unlikely to go up anytime soon,” said an official of a medical travel assistance company.
“Until 8-9 years ago, many patients from Pakistan came to us for liver transplantation every month. However, their numbers have dwindled over time. We have transplanted just two patients from there in the past year – the last one seven months ago,” Dr Arvinder Soin, chairman and chief surgeon, Medanta Institute of Liver Transplantation, said.
A source at Fortis healthcare also confirmed that Pakistani nationals visiting their hospitals for treatment has reduced significantly over the years. “We have only had a few Pakistani embassy officials visiting us for routine health issues recently,” the source said. Indraprastha Apollo Hospital in Delhi said they do not have any Pakistani patient under treatment at the moment.