Healthcare and Hospital Promotions and Audience Reception

Abstract

Indian healthcare system is believe to be one of the best in Asia. India has been emerging as a healthcare destination for many people living in other countries. Enhanced medical tourism in any country is generally a testimony to the quality of healthcare (Ayoubian & Hashemi, 2013). This increase in India’s reputation pertaining to healthcare and hospitals has led to increase in the number of private hospitals. With these bloating figures, hospital advertising and PR has assumed heightened significance. This era of new economic realities has witnessed mushrooming of private hospitals along with PPP model in the healthcare sector in India. The growth 2000 onwards in-fact surpassed the previous growths manifolds (Kumar, 2015). The number grew consistently and thus increased the competition leading to corporatization of the Hospital Industry (Kumar, 2015). The hospital services were promoted like any other product or service which led to gradual criticism from all corners. The ethical dilemma related to whether hospital services should be treated as any other product started surfacing amongst the people. These moral and ethical dilemma are not just prevalent in India but are global (Bogianzidis, 2017).
This article focusses on the prevalent PR and advertising practices that are often criticized and seldom praised (Gaitho, 2007). Public Relations and advertising in general are considered to be manipulative in nature (Mukherjee & Nathawat-Aibas, 2017).