Medical Tourism?

Immediately India revealed its nicest side: a Tata Sumo screeched to a stop and a stranger hauled me out of the hole then drove to my hotel nearby to warn them. I felt no pain and it was only when I saw myself in the hotel lift's mirror covered in blood that I realised I was in trouble. At the hospital they stitched me up and kept me under observation. The nights were hideous with the coughs and groans of my fellow-patients hammering on death's door. When my wife Daniela kissed me goodnight at 7 pm on December 31, that was the end of my New Year's celebrations. The hospital ward, however, was impressively clean and modern and the attention was kindly as well as professional. This impromptu road test of the Indian health system suggests that all those Brits lining up to fly to India for operations that would cost five or ten times as much over there are certainly onto a good thing.

Friends in Europe urged me to sue the Ranchi municipality for millions of pounds, but I have spent enough time in India not to step willingly into that particular chasm.