Mauritius
When Mauritius cannot treat you, its own ministry already has an agreement naming India.
Not a facilitator’s claim. The Ministry of Health and Wellness’s own published policy, naming India as its treatment-abroad partner ahead of any other country. This page explains what that agreement covers, and what it leaves for you to decide.
Under Mauritius’s Overseas Treatment Scheme, patients recommended by a Regional Hospital Medical Board who meet the household income criteria are sent to health institutions in India with which the Ministry of Health and Wellness has a Memorandum of Understanding; those who choose a hospital of their own abroad get assistance based on the lowest quotation from those institutions, plus funds equal to the India airfare
Mauritius Ministry of Health and Wellness, official website, Overseas Treatment Unit Checked 2026-10-03.
Read on 3 October 2026. The ministry adds that in some severe cases, on the treating doctor’s recommendation, a stretcher is provided. Whether a patient qualifies is decided by the Medical Board and the ministry, not by us.
A government preference is not the same as a decision made for your specific case. It tells you the route exists and is trusted at policy level. It does not tell you which hospital or which surgeon is right for your diagnosis.
We arrange an independent specialist opinion that answers that, for a fee paid by you, and we take nothing from any hospital.
Medically reviewed
Reviewed by Dr Gunjan Patel, MBBS, registered with the Gujarat Medical Council (G-65059). Reviewed for accuracy only. This page is general information, not advice about your own case, and Dr Gunjan Patel does not diagnose, prescribe or treat.
The scheme, on the ministry’s own figures
Who the Overseas Treatment Scheme pays for, and how much.
Around 409
patients were helped under Mauritius’s Overseas Treatment Scheme between 1 July 2024 and 30 June 2025, according to the Ministry of Health and Wellness annual report, which does not say how many were treated in India
Ministry of Health and Wellness (Mauritius), Annual Report on Performance, Financial Year 2024-2025, section 2.1.28 Checked 2026-10-03.
Read on 3 October 2026. The report does not say how many of these patients were treated in India, in another country or at a private clinic in Mauritius, which the scheme has allowed since 2022, or for which treatments. It prints the amount disbursed in a garbled form, so we do not quote it.
The scheme is means-tested, and for patients aged 26 and over it is also capped. For patients aged 26 and over, the Mauritius Ministry of Health and Wellness reports raising the Overseas Treatment Scheme’s monthly household income ceiling from Rs 150,000 to Rs 200,000 and its grant limit from Rs 1 million to Rs 1.3 million.
Ministry of Health and Wellness (Mauritius), Annual Report on Performance, Financial Year 2024-2025, section 2.1.28 Checked 2026-10-03.
Read on 3 October 2026. The report’s own table of budget measures lists both changes as already implemented. Ask the Overseas Treatment Unit for the limits that apply on the date you apply.
Children and young people are treated differently. The Mauritius Ministry of Health and Wellness reports that cancer treatment for children and young adults up to 25 is fully financed by the government, and that for other severe conditions the Rs 1 million overseas treatment cap was removed for paediatric patients, an age limit the same report gives as 18 in one place and 25 in another.
Ministry of Health and Wellness (Mauritius), Annual Report on Performance, Financial Year 2024-2025, section 2.1.28 Checked 2026-10-03.
Read on 3 October 2026. Section 2.1.28 gives the age for the cap removal as up to 18; the report’s table of budget measures gives up to 25 and says the scheme has been amended accordingly. Ask the Overseas Treatment Unit which applies to your child.
Not every referral now means a flight. The Mauritius Ministry of Health and Wellness says that since 2022 its Overseas Treatment Scheme also lets patients be treated in local private clinics when treatment is not available in public hospitals, and that kidney transplants, once done in India at its expense, are now performed in Mauritius by visiting specialist teams, which it says has significantly reduced the need for overseas treatment.
Ministry of Health and Wellness (Mauritius), Annual Report on Performance, Financial Year 2024-2025, sections 2.1.28 and 2.1.5 (renal transplant) Checked 2026-10-03.
Read on 3 October 2026. The report says the need was reduced, not ended, and records eight kidney transplants done locally in 2024-2025 by visiting specialists. It does not say the same for liver or bone marrow transplant.
The scheme is older than the India agreement, and was not only about transplant even then. One older figure comes from a 2014 news report rather than the ministry: over 150 patients a year were being referred abroad in 2014, before the scheme’s current India-MOU structure existed, under Mauritius’s government-funded overseas treatment scheme, for eye treatment, cardiac, neurosurgical and other conditions, income-tested at the time.
Business Mega, "Assistance of Rs 800,000 for Treatment Abroad", 15 April 2014 Checked 2026-09-13.
A single dated news source describing the scheme before its current India-MOU structure existed. The scheme is confirmed to cover more than transplant care, but this exact annual figure should be read as historical scale, not a current-year count.
That leaves real gaps. A household above the income ceiling does not meet the scheme’s criteria, and a treatment that costs more than the grant limit, or a hospital outside the agreement, may not be covered in full. That is where an independent read matters most, and the free 30 minute consultation is where we tell you honestly whether an independent opinion would help you, or whether it would not. Please do not send records or scans before we have spoken.
What the scheme covers, on the record
- Eye treatment
- Cardiac care
- Neurosurgery
- Transplant, the reported focus of the 2025 agreement
- Other conditions unavailable domestically, assessed case by case
What is new, and how solid it is
A further agreement, reported once, not yet independently confirmed twice.
Mauritius’s Ministry of Health reportedly signed a further Memorandum of Understanding with an Indian hospital in October 2025, covering kidney, liver and bone marrow transplant cooperation, telemedicine, professional training and simplified patient referral, based on a single Mauritian news report not yet corroborated by a second source or a government release
Capmad, "Santé: Nouveaux accords entre Maurice et l’Inde", 3 November 2025 Checked 2026-09-13.
Reported by one Mauritian outlet, not independently corroborated by a second source or a direct government release. Treat the existence of a further 2025 agreement as likely rather than certain.
One outlet reporting an agreement is real evidence, not proof to the same standard as the ministry’s own published policy above. Both can be true at once: the general India-MOU relationship is confirmed directly from government sources, and this specific newer agreement rests on secondary reporting we could not independently corroborate.
38
Mauritian patients were sent abroad, government-funded, for organ transplantation before the programme was halted by COVID-19, according to peer-reviewed nephrology literature. Mauritius’s own Renal Association states plainly that the true total number of Mauritians transplanted abroad is not known
Ip Min Wan et al., "Global Dialysis Perspective: Mauritius", Kidney360, 2021 Checked 2026-09-13.
A cumulative pre-2020 figure, not an annual rate, and not a count of the current India-MOU programme specifically.
That is the clearest historical number available for transplants abroad, and it comes with its own limit, stated by the same Mauritian organisation that would know: nobody has a confirmed total. We are not going to invent a current transplant figure to fill that gap.
A smaller neighbour, the same pattern
Seychelles shows the same government-to-government relationship, at a smaller scale.
Seychelles is a much smaller country than Mauritius, and we do not have a page for it on its own. What real evidence exists points the same direction, so it belongs here rather than nowhere.
over 200 patients a year (India and Sri Lanka combined)
Seychelles was sending over 200 patients a year for specialised overseas treatment, mainly to India and Sri Lanka combined, not India alone, according to Seychelles’ own health minister at the time
Seychelles News Agency, "Hospital in India interested in Seychelles’ Ministry of Health partnership for patient treatment", 17 December 2018, quoting Health Minister Jean-Paul Adam Checked 2026-09-15.
The only patient-volume figure found for this corridor, and it is eight years old, combines India and Sri Lanka rather than isolating India, and traces to a single news outlet rather than a government statistical release. No more recent or India-specific figure exists in this research.
That is the only patient-volume figure we could find for this corridor, and it is worth being honest about its limits: it is eight years old, and it counts India and Sri Lanka together rather than India on its own. We are not going to dress up an old, combined number as a current, India-specific one.
What has moved since then is the government relationship itself. Seychelles’ president made a state visit to India in February 2026.
10 ambulances gifted (6 with advanced medical equipment)
India gifted Seychelles ten ambulances, six of them equipped with advanced medical technology, plus assistance with paramedic training, during a state visit by Seychelles’ president to India in February 2026
Recognition of the Indian Pharmacopoeia was one of seven agreements signed during the same February 2026 state visit, intended to streamline Seychelles’ procurement of quality-assured essential medicines. Seychelles’ president personally visited a major Indian cancer treatment centre during the February 2026 state visit, discussing oncology capacity-building and telemedicine access for Seychellois patients. Neither detail is something a facilitator’s marketing page would have reason to publish; both are read directly from the two governments’ own accounts of the visit.
India’s Foreign Secretary, official press briefing, 9 February 2026, reported by All India Radio (newsonair.gov.in) Checked 2026-09-15.
State House Seychelles, official readout, 6 February 2026 Checked 2026-09-15.
The centre is not named on this site, by house rule, since naming it would also name the Indian city it is in.
A second, separate visit followed four months later, when India’s prime minister travelled to Seychelles for its Golden Jubilee independence celebrations.
India’s Prime Minister visited Seychelles in June 2026 for its Golden Jubilee independence celebrations, producing two further health-linked agreements: preliminary preparations for a new Seychelles national hospital, and an agreement with an Indian state-owned healthcare company to supply affordable generic medicines under India’s own domestic low-cost medicine scheme
Government of India, Prime Minister’s Office visit summary, corroborated by India’s state broadcaster (DD News) and multiple named outlets, 27-29 June 2026 Checked 2026-09-15.
The Indian company is not named on this site, by the same house rule that keeps hospital names off every page.
None of this is new. A real medical evacuation already shows the route being used under government arrangement, years before this recent diplomatic activity.
95 people repatriated, including 42 patients and attendants from India
A Seychelles government-funded repatriation flight in May 2020 carried 95 people home, including 42 patients and their attendants who had been undergoing treatment in India with government financial assistance, alongside a smaller group from Sri Lanka
Seychelles Director of Consular Affairs, quoted in LogUpdate Africa, 22 May 2020 Checked 2026-09-15.
Multiple independent reports converge on the same figures, but the primary Seychelles News Agency account could not be directly loaded to confirm firsthand, so this is rated attributed rather than verified. The Indian city the flight departed is not named here, by house rule.
Seychellois citizens are eligible for India’s e-Medical Visa and e-Medical Attendant Visa, and the Indian High Commission’s own published fee schedule for Seychelles waives the visa fee entirely. That single detail tells you more about how established this route already is than any marketing page would.
High Commission of India, Victoria, Seychelles, official visa fee schedule Checked 2026-09-15.
The practical route
What the visa itself requires.
India’s e-Medical Visa is available to Mauritian citizens, valid for triple entry over sixty days from first arrival, and requires a letter from the treating Indian hospital plus preliminary medical records from a doctor or hospital in Mauritius
Indian Visa Online, official e-Visa portal Checked 2026-09-13.
The treating hospital’s letter and your own preliminary records both need to exist before the visa application does, which is exactly the sequence a rushed booking tends to skip.
Who pays for the advice you get
A route this well established attracts businesses paid to say yes.
Wherever real numbers of patients travel a route, companies form to arrange the trip. Some are paid by the hospital that receives the patient, not by the patient, which is worth knowing before you take advice from anyone.
Referral fees
can be paid to a medical travel facilitator by the hospital abroad, and a review of the research on facilitators, published in 2012, says patients may not know how much, or in what manner, a facilitator is paid
A review of earlier research, read as the authors’ manuscript. It says some facilitators are paid by their clients and others by facilities or physicians abroad, gives no proportion and no rate, and says there is little evidence on whether such payments influence recommendations. We found no readable source that gives a commission percentage, so we do not print one. The book is dated 2012 and the university repository record 2013. A consultant’s account of price padding shown elsewhere on the site is hers, attributed to her, and not a rate we have verified. Commission is one model in this market, not the only one, and we never say every company works this way.
That does not make every such company dishonest. It does mean the recommendation you receive has a financial direction built into it, even when a government MOU sits in the background.
We are paid by you, once, and we take nothing from any hospital afterwards. This is exactly how that works, and this is how it compares to the commission model above.
Questions
What Mauritian patients and families ask us.
I have already been referred through the government scheme. Why would I need you as well?
The scheme tells you India is the approved destination. It does not tell you which specific hospital within that arrangement is the right fit for your diagnosis, or whether the treatment plan you have been given is the correct one. That independent check sits alongside the referral, not in place of it.
Does the scheme only cover transplant cases?
No. Transplant is the current, most visible focus of the newest agreement, but the underlying scheme has covered eye, cardiac and neurosurgical referrals for over a decade. If your condition is something else entirely, ask, rather than assuming it falls outside the programme.
How many people actually go through this programme each year?
The ministry’s own annual report gives a count for the year to June 2025, set out above. What it does not say is how many of those patients were treated in India, rather than in another country or at a private clinic in Mauritius, or for which treatments, so we do not guess.
Why would I pay you when the government scheme pays for treatment?
Because paying for treatment is a different thing from checking that the plan is right. The scheme is means-tested and, for patients aged 26 and over, capped, so it may not pay for everything, and it is arranged through the government’s own agreements. We are paid by you specifically so our opinion has no reason to favour any hospital, including the ones named in that arrangement.
Do you cover Seychelles too?
Not with a page of its own, because the one real patient-volume figure we found is eight years old and does not separate India from Sri Lanka, not strong enough to anchor a page by itself. What we found is still real: government-arranged treatment travel going back years, a formal evacuation flight during the pandemic, and a run of 2026 agreements between the two governments, covered above. If you are calling from Seychelles, we will work with what is real rather than what a page needs to look complete.
Who looks after me once I am back in Mauritius?
A doctor there, agreed before you travel rather than found afterwards. This is why our involvement runs for ninety days after you return rather than ending at the airport. How the ninety days work.
Get an independent read alongside the referral.
Thirty minutes, free. We will tell you plainly whether the plan in front of you is right, before either of us spends more time on it.