Devi Prasad Shetty (born 8 May 1953) is an Indian cardiac surgeon who is the chairman and founder of Narayana Health, a chain of 24 medical centers in India. He has performed more than 100,000 heart operations. 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 The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...

for his contribution to the field of affordable healthcare.

Early life and education

Shetty was born in Kinnigoli, a village in the Dakshina Kannada district,

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

, 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. Shetty was educated at St. Aloysius School, Mangaluru. He completed his MBBS in 1979, and post-graduate work in General Surgery from Kasturba Medical College,

Mangalore Mangaluru (), formerly called Mangalore ( ), is a major industrial port city in the Indian state of Karnataka and on the west coast of India. It is located between the Laccadive Sea and the Western Ghats about west of Bengaluru, the st ...

. Later he completed FRCS from Royal College of Surgeons, England.

Career

He returned to India in 1989 and initially worked at B.M. Birla Hospital in

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

. He successfully performed the first neonatal heart surgery in the country in 1992, on a 21-day-old baby Ronnie. In

he operated on

Mother Teresa Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu (born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, ; 26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), better known as Mother Teresa or Saint Mother Teresa, was an Albanian-Indian Catholic Church, Roman Catholic nun, founder of the Missionaries of ...

after she had a heart attack, and subsequently served as her personal physician. 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. 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 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. 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 Ahmedabad ( ), also spelled Amdavad (), is the most populous city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ahmedabad district and the seat of the Gujarat High Court. Ahmedabad's population of 5,570,585 ...

Low cost health care

Shetty aims for his hospitals to use

economies of scale In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of Productivity, output produced per unit of cost (production cost). A decrease in ...

, to allow them to complete heart surgeries at a lower cost than in the United States. In 2009 ''

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'' newspaper described him as "the Henry Ford of heart surgery". 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. Shetty aims to trim costs with such measures as buying cheaper scrubs and using

cross ventilation Cross ventilation is a natural phenomenon where wind enters an opening, such as a window, flows directly through the space, and exits through an opening on the opposite side of the building (where the air pressure is lower). This produces a cool s ...

instead of

air conditioning Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C (US) or air con (UK), is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior temperature, and in some cases, also controlling the humidity of internal air. Air c ...

. That has cut the price of coronary bypass surgery to 95,000 rupees ($1,583), half of what it was 20 years ago. 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 Cleveland Clinic is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit Academic health science center, academic Medical centers in the United States, medical center based in Cleveland, Ohio. Owned and operated by the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, an O ...

. 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". 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. Whereas urban India calls him "Henry Ford" for his assembly line approach to heart surgeries, rural Indians calls him "Bypasswale Baba" as attested by thousands of sources such as the Deccan Herald, the English newspaper with the largest circulation in Karnataka, Shetty's home state. This is because, like a saint (or Rishi in Indian mythology), anybody who comes to Devi Shetty's Ashram/hospital gets a bypass if he or she dreams of it. Dr Edmond Fernandes and Dr Devi Shetty in Bengaluru

Dr Edmond Fernandes and Dr Devi Shetty in Bengaluru

Shetty and his family have a 75 percent stake in Narayana Hrudayalaya which he plans to preserve. Shetty has also pioneered low-cost diagnostic services. He was appointed as chairman of the COVID-19 task force in Karnataka which was criticized by global health doctors as being a cardiac surgeon, he did not have the epidemiological approach to COVID-19 management.

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.

Awards and recognition

* Padma Bhushan Award for Medicine, in 2012 * Karnataka Ratna Award, in 2001 *Entrepreneur of the Year at ET awards, in 2012 *2011

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...

Innovation Award in ''Business Process'' *Honorary degree,

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, in 2011 *Honorary degree, ‘Honoris Causa’ Degree of ‘Doctor of Science’ by Indian Institute of Technology Madras, in 2014 * Schwab Foundation 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 EY, previously known as Ernst & Young, is a multinational corporation, multinational professional services partnership, network based in London, United Kingdom. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and PwC, it is one of the Big Four accounting firms, Big F ...

, Entrepreneur Of The Year – Life Sciences, in 2012 *

, Entrepreneur of the Year – Start-up, in 2003 *Rajyotsava Award, in 2002 *Indian Of The Year (Public Sector) by CNN-IBN, in 2012

Television

Shetty stars in the fourth (and last) episode of

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

'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.BBC New
"The Surgeon's Cut"
/ref>

References

External links

Profile - Devi Prasad Shetty
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shetty, Devi Prasad Indian cardiac surgeons Indian philanthropists Medical doctors from Bengaluru Mangaloreans Tulu people 1953 births Living people Recipients of the Padma Shri in medicine Recipients of the Karnataka Ratna Manipal Academy of Higher Education alumni Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons of England Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in medicine Scientists from Mangalore Physicians of Guy's Hospital Winners of the Nikkei Asia Prize 20th-century Indian surgeons Indian healthcare chief executives