INDIA-GLOBAL BABY - Malpani Clinic on Reuters !

STORY: Indian doctors came to the rescue of a couple from Florida, USA to
get their child through in-vitro fertilisation cycles - a technique by which
human eggs are fertilised outside the womb.

Forty-five-year old acupuncture physician Nicole Brown and thirty-nine-year
old Scott  have flown down to western commercial hub Mumbai, to have the
operation done.

"Our main reason was the dollar we were spending and we looked for the
best places to go where we felt a connection. So my wife felt connections to
Vietnam- she is Vietnamese-and India because it's spiritual.  There were other
places she checked also-Romania- but we didn't feel the connection going to
these places," said Scott.

The couple has been married for the past three years and has been trying
for a child. Doctors told Nichole to go for in-vitro fertilization as her egg
were not good enough to conceive.

A 27-year-old Vietnamese food technician has been selected to donate the
egg, to retain Nicole's ethnicity. 

After visiting Argentina, Greece and Vietnam, the couple finally chose
India.

"We are finding in countries like USA, England the personal touch of
the doctor is not there. Like typically in England for example, the nurses are
handling the patient, the nurses do the Sonography, they talk to them. The
doctor is seen only once and then for the egg pick up. While here --between my
husband -- and me Doctor Anirudh Malpani - we see each and every patient from
the beginning till the end. We do the consultation, we do the Sonography, we
do the pick up, and we talk to them in the laboratory at every stage. We are
connecting with them they get a human touch," said Doctor Anjali Malpani,
Gynecologist at Malpani nursing home that will do the operation.

While the process would have cost the couple between $20,000 to 30,000 in
the U.S., they would have to spend less than half the amount in the Mumbai
hospital.

"I have treated 140 patients from abroad from 50 different countries
in 2006. That's a huge jump from what we were doing about 3 years ago and the
influx is definitely there. What they want is a good doctor. Of course you
have to have success, our success is as good as anywhere in the world,"
she added.

Over the years India has grown as a medical tourism destination, with
treatment costs starting at around a tenth of comparable prices in the West.
The value of medical tourism to India is estimated to reach $2 billion
annually by 2012.