Devi Shetty

Devi Prasad Shetty (born 8 May 1953) is an Indian philanthropist and a cardiac surgeon. He has leveraged economies of scale to provide affordable healthcare. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, third highest civilian award in India for his contribution to the field of affordable healthcare.^[2]

Life and career

Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty is chairman and Founder, Narayana Health (Narayana Hrudayalaya in now Narayana Health) http://www.narayanahealth.org/.

Devi Shetty was born at Kinnigoli village Dakshina Kannada district, Karnataka, India. The eighth of nine children, he decided to become a heart surgeon when he was in fifth grade at school after hearing about a South African surgeon who had just performed the world's first heart transplant.^[3] After completing his graduate degree in Medicine and post-graduate work in General Surgery from Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore, he trained in cardiac surgery at Guy's Hospital in the United Kingdom. He returned to India in 1989 and initially worked at B.M. Birla Hospital in Kolkata. He performed the first neonatal heart surgery in the country on a 9-day-old baby named "Ronnie" 1992 a successful operation in medical history. In Kolkata he operated on Mother Teresa after she had a heart attack and subsequently served as her personal physician.^[1] After some time, he moved to Bangalore and started the Manipal Heart Foundation at Manipal Hospital, Bangalore. Financial contribution for the construction of the hospital was provided by Shetty's father-in-law.

He has performed over 15,000 heart operations.^[4]

Shetty's advice for good heart

Shetty, in an interview, says that key to good heart is walking and balanced food.^[5] He gives five rules of thumb for heart health-diet (less carbohydrate, more protein, less oil), regular exercise, quit smoking, control weight, control blood pressure and sugar.^[5]

Contributions

In 2001, Shetty founded Narayana Hrudayalaya (NH), a multi-specialty hospital in Bommasandra on the outskirts of Bangalore, because he could not find any employers who understood his vision. He believes that the cost of healthcare can be reduced by 50 percent in the next 5–10 years if hospitals adopt the idea of economies of scale.^[6] Apart from cardiac surgery, NH also has cardiology, neurosurgery, paediatric surgery, haematology and transplant services, and nephrology among various others. The heart hospital is the largest in the world with 1000 beds performing over 30 major heart surgeries a day. The land on which the health city was built, was previously a marshland which was reclaimed for this purpose. The Health City intends to cater to about 15,000 outpatients every day. In August 2012, Shetty announced an agreement with TriMedx, a subsidiary of Ascension Health, to create a joint venture aimed at taking healthcare throughout India. In the past Narayana Hrudayalaya has collaborated with Ascension Health to set up a health care city in Cayman Islands, planned to eventually have 2,000 beds.^[7]

Shetty also founded Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences (RTIICS) in Kolkata. Shetty has also signed a MOU with the Karnataka Government during the Global Investor's meet to build a 10 billion 5,000 bed super speciality hospital near the Bangalore International Airport. His company has sighed MOU with Government of Gujarat, for setting up 5000 bed hospital at Ahmedabad.^[8]

His company has built low cost 150 bed hospital at Mysore on land provided by Government and used cross ventilation instead of air conditioning, to cut investment cost.^[9] He was a part of the seven-member panel of Board of Governors which replaced the MCI and served for a period of one year before it was further reconstituted.

His hospitals have reduced costs by taking advantage of the economies of scale, this allows them to complete heart surgeries for a tenth of the cost in the United States. The Wall Street Journal has given him the title of Henry Ford of heart surgery.^[10] In 2013 six new hospitals will be opened on the Narayana Hrudayalaya model, across the country which will provide high quality treatment at low cost. In the next seven years, there are plans to expand to 30,000 beds with hospitals in India, Africa and other countries in Asia.^[6]

Shetty and his family have a 75 percent stake in Narayana Hrudayalaya which he plans to preserve so that he does not have to compromise on the freedom or decision making power in his mission to help the underprivileged and to bring down the cost of healthcare in the country. ^[9]

Yeshasvini

Yeshasvini is the world's cheapest comprehensive health insurance scheme, at Rs. 10 (20 cents) per month, designed by Shetty and the Government of Karnataka for the poor farmers of the state. It is very well-used in Karnataka with 4 million people covered.^[4]

Awards and recognition

• Padma Bhushan award for Medicine in 2012^[11]
• Karnataka Ratna award in 2001
• Entrepreneur of the Year at ET awards in 2012^[6]
• Won the 2011 The Economist Innovation Awards for the Business process field.^[12]
• Honorary Degree, University of Minnesota in 2011
• Honorary Degree, Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 2014
• Schwab Foundation's award in 2005
• Padma Shri award for Medicine in 2004
• Dr. B C Roy award in 2003
• Sir M. Visvesvaraya Memorial Award in 2003
• Ernst & Young – Entrepreneur of the Year in 2003
• Rajyotsava award in 2002
• Indian of the year in public sector choose by CNN-IBN for the year 2012

References

External links

• Narayana Hospitals – official website
• Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences
• Documentary featuring the Narayana Health system