In Medical Tourism and Inequity in India, Kristen Smith explores Indian private hospitals and their role in the global healthcare service supply chain within various religious, social, cultural, historical, and economic contexts. Drawing on critical medical anthropology theories as well as health and human rights perspectives, Smith problematizes the assumed independence between the medical tourism industry, the commodification of the Indian healthcare system, and the local populations facing critical health issues, while highlighting the rapid transformation of healthcare services into merely another global commodity.

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This book successfully shows how the shifting economic structure of tertiary healthcare has significantly increased the flow of medical tourists in India, yet its local impacts have been catastrophic. Overall, this is an enlightening book that is appropriate for researchers of medical tourism and global medicine, and it also provides direction to the medical tourism policymakers and relevant stakeholders in creating a more sustainable business framework.