Dr. Shetty

Heart Surgeon
and founder of a new healthcare facility in the Cayman Islands

Dr. Shetty is one of India’s most famous heart surgeons.  In 2001, Dr Shetty built India’s largest private heart clinic with donations with 450 beds and 8 operating theatres. Through skillful management and mixed financing, he was able to reduce the price of the clinic, so that poor people also can afford treatment. For his work, Dr Shetty received the Schwab Foundation’s award for “Social Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2005.  At his flagship 1,000-bed Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital, surgeons operate at a capacity virtually unheard of in the US, where the average hospital has 160 beds, according to the American Hospital Association.  Narayana's 42 cardiac surgeons performed 3,174 cardiac bypass surgeries in 2008, more than double the 1,367 the Cleveland Clinic, a US leader, did in the same year. His surgeons operated on 2,777 paediatric patients, more than double the 1,026 surgeries performed at Children's Hospital Boston.  Shetty, was Mother Teresa’s personal heart physician.  Dr. Shetty is building to build a healthcare facility in the Cayman Islands that will include a medical school.   The plan, he says, is to build and run a 2,000-bed general hospital where procedures, both elective and necessary, will be priced at least 50% lower than what they cost in the US. Dr Shetty has said he hopes it will draw Americans who are either uninsured or need surgery that their plans don't cover. The facility will offer low cost healthcare to Caymanians as well as boost the local economy.