Devi Shetty

Devi Prasad Shetty, MS, FRCS, (born 8 May 1953) is an Indian cardiac surgeon and entrepreneur. He is the chairman and founder of Narayana Health, a chain of 21 medical centers in India.[3] He has performed more than 15,000 heart operations.[4] In 2004 he was awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, followed by the Padma Bhushan in 2012, the third highest civilian award by the Government of India for his contribution to the field of affordable healthcare.[5][6]

Devi Prasad Shetty
Born (1953-05-08) 8 May 1953[1]
Mangaluru, Karnataka, India)
EducationKasturba Medical College (MBBS, M.S.)
Royal college of Surgeons (FRCS)
Years active1983–present
Known forFounder & Chairman, Narayana Health[2]
Medical career
ProfessionCardiothoracic surgery
InstitutionsKasturba Medical College, Mangalore
Guy's Hospital United Kingdom
B.M. Birla Hospital Kolkata
Manipal Hospital Bangalore
Sub-specialtiesCardiovascular Thoracic Surgery
AwardsPadma Bhushan (2012)
Schwab Foundation's (2005)
Dr. B. C. Roy Award (2003)
Rajyotsava award (2002)
Karnataka Ratna (2001)

Early life

Shetty was born in a village in the Dakshina Kannada district, Karnataka, India. The eighth of nine children, he decided to become a heart surgeon when he was a school student after hearing about Christiaan Barnard, a South African surgeon who had just performed the world's first heart transplant.[7]

He was educated at St. Aloysius School, Mangalore[8] and at the St. Aloysius College, Mangaluru.[9] He completed his MBBS in 1979,[10] and post-graduate work in General Surgery from Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore. Later he completed FRCS from Royal College of Surgeons, England.[11]

Career

He returned to India in 1989 and initially worked at B.M. Birla Hospital in Kolkata. He successfully performed the first neonatal heart surgery in the country in 1989, on a 9-day-old baby.[12] 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 Hospitals, Bangalore. Financial contribution for the construction of the hospital was provided by Shetty's father-in-law.

In 2001, Shetty founded Narayana Hrudayalaya (NH), a multi-specialty hospital in Bommasandra on the outskirts of Bangalore. 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.[13] 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 for a chain of hospitals in India. In the past Narayana Hrudayalaya has collaborated with Ascension Health to set up a health care city in the Cayman Islands, planned to eventually have 2,000 beds.[14]

Shetty also founded Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences (RTIICS) in Kolkata, and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Karnataka Government to build 5,000-bed specialty hospital near Bangalore International Airport. His company signed a MOU with the Government of Gujarat, to set up a 5,000-bed hospital at Ahmedabad.[15]

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.

Low cost health care

Shetty aims for his hospitals to use economies of scale, to allow them to complete heart surgeries at a lower cost than in the United States. In 2009 The Wall Street Journal newspaper described him as "the Henry Ford of heart surgery".[16] Six additional hospitals were subsequently planned on the Narayana Hrudayalaya model at several cities in India, with plans to expand to 30,000 beds with hospitals in India, Africa and other countries in Asia.[13] Shetty aims to trim costs with such measures as buying cheaper scrubs and using cross ventilation instead of air conditioning.[17] That has cut the price of coronary bypass surgery to 95,000 rupees ($1,583), half of what it was 20 years ago.[3] In 2013 he aimed to get the price down to $800 within a decade. The same procedure costs $106,385 at Ohio's Cleveland Clinic.[3] He has also eliminated many pre-ops testing and innovated in patient care such as "drafting and training patients' family members to administer after-surgical care".[18] Surgeons in his hospitals perform 30 to 35 surgeries a day compared to one or two in a US hospital. His hospitals also provide substantial free care especially for poor children.[19] He performs free surgery for the poor. In many parts of rural northern India, the poor refer to Dr. Shetty as Bypasswale Baba, i.e. the Saint who Grants Bypasses. Also very much like the saints of yore, no one who dreams of a bypass and comes to his hospital/ashram leaves without a bypass.

Shetty and his family have a 75 percent stake in Narayana Hrudayalaya which he plans to preserve.[17] Shetty has also pioneered low-cost diagnostic services.[20]

Yeshasvini

Yeshasvini is a low-cost health insurance scheme, designed by Shetty and the Government of Karnataka for the poor farmers of the state, with 4 million people currently covered.[4]

Awards and recognition

Television

Shetty stars in the fourth (and last) episode of Netflix's docuseries The Surgeon's Cut, which was released globally on 9 December 2020. The episode follows Shetty's treatment of patients, mostly children and babies, prioritizing low-cost and affordable healthcare, while performing with his team more than thirty surgeries a day.[27]

References
  1. "Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty". MSN India. Retrieved 5 June 2012.
  2. "Credihealth profile". Credihealth.com. 2017. Archived from the original on 18 October 2018. Retrieved 23 February 2017.
  3. Gokhale, Ketaki (28 July 2013). "Heart Surgery in India for $1,583 Costs $106,385 in U.S." Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 6 May 2016.
  4. "First break all the rules". The Economist. 15 April 2010. Retrieved 5 June 2012.
  5. "Padma Awards". pib. 27 January 2013. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
  6. "Padma Awards" (PDF). Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 November 2014. Retrieved July 21, 2015.
  7. "The Henry ford of heart surgery". The Wall Street Journal. 25 November 2009. Retrieved 6 November 2012.
  8. Martina, Mala (22 October 2017). "'Surgery is an art'". The Hindu.
  9. "Notable alumni: This Mangaluru College minted bigwigs like KV Kamath, VG Siddhartha & KL Rahul". The Economic Times.
  10. Directorate of Printing, Government of India (3 January 1981). "Gazette of India, 1981, No. 452". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  11. Brief Profile - Devi Prasad Shetty
  12. Anand, Geeta. "The Henry Ford of Heart Surgery". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones. Retrieved 25 November 2009.
  13. "ET Awards 2012". Economic Times. 19 September 2012. Retrieved 6 November 2012.
  14. "Devi Shetty to leverage frugal engineering for medical fraternity". Business Standard. 28 August 2012. Retrieved 6 November 2012.
  15. "Narayana Hrudayalaya, Gujarat join hands for health city project". Thehindubusinessline.in. 17 January 2009. Retrieved 26 May 2013.
  16. "The Henry Ford of Heart Surgery". The Wall Street Journal. 25 November 2009. Retrieved 5 June 2012.
  17. "We will prove the poor can access healthcare: Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty, Narayana Hrudayalaya". Economic Times. 25 June 2012. Retrieved 6 November 2012.
  18. Rai, Saritha. "Devi Shetty, Who Put Heart Surgeries Within Reach Of India's Poor, Is Taking Narayana Chain Public". Forbes. Retrieved 7 May 2016.
  19. "India's Philanthropist-Surgeon Delivers Cardiac Care Henry Ford-Style". NPR.org. Retrieved 7 May 2016.
  20. "Narayana Health, Cisco join hands to offer affordable diagnostics solution". Newindianexpress.com. Retrieved 18 October 2017.
  21. Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty, Padma Bhushan. "Padma Bhushan to Dr. Shetty". Ndtv.com. Retrieved 18 October 2017.
  22. "Business Process award winner 2011". The Economist. Archived from the original on 2 June 2012. Retrieved 5 June 2012.
  23. "'Social enterprises' rise in Asia amid skepticism". Nikkei Asian Review. TOMOMI KIKUCHI. Retrieved 16 September 2018.
  24. "Devi Shetty hails NMC bill, says it's a good move by govt". The Indian Express. 2 January 2018. Retrieved 16 September 2018.
  25. "Entrepreneur Of The Year 2017 program - Past winners". Ernst & Young. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
  26. "Entrepreneur Of The Year 2017 program - Past winners". Ernst & Young. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
  27. BBC News "The Surgeon's Cut"
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