With the burgeoning aging population in the UK, there is a very high demand for joint replacement of the hips and knees. People are increasingly dissatisfied with the NHS waiting lists and hate to spend their post retirement time in pain. They cannot afford the cost of private joint replacement. Elective lists are often cancelled due to some emergency. In the NHS, they wait for months to see an orthopaedic surgeon.The situation is worst in England and slightly better in Scotland.

Many orthopaedic surgeon like me have gone through a rigorous training process in the UK and practice in India. Hospitals in Chennai offer good facilities for joint replacement. Nursing care is good with Indian nurses filling up the void world wide.

A hip replacement in the private sector in the UK costs about 10- 12 thousand pounds. In Chennai, the same would cost about 5000 pounds including airfare. A knee replacment in the UK costs about 9000 pounds whereas here the same can be done for 2000- 2500 pounds. a unicondylar knee replacement costs 6000 pounds whereas here the cost is only 2000 pounds.

I use a knee prosthesis, Nexgen legacy flex knee( Zimmer) that allows 130 - 140 degrees of flexion. This amount of knee bend is welcome to citizens of the UK who like to garden and for other recreational activities. For Unicondylar or partial knee replacements, I use the Oxford unicompartmental mobile bearing knee with phase 3 instrumentation. This reduces the size of the incision to 3 inches, avoids blood loss, less post op pain, quicker return of function and rapid discharge from the hospital

Orthopaedic surgery like Knee replacement, revision knee replacement, double knee replacement,Unicondylar replacement, ACL reconstruction is affordable in India and British patients are visiting me regularly( see news). Hospital rooms cater to every pocket. The operating theares in the hospitals to which I am affiliated have laminar airflow which reduces the post op infection rate.

Patients with rheumaotid and bilateral osteoarthritis are candidates for double knee replacment. This can be done at the same sitting or with an interval of one or two days. The overall cost of a double knee replacement will be manifold cheaper than in the UK or in Europe.