Devi Prasad Shetty (born 8 May 1953) is an Indian entrepreneur and cardiac surgeon who is the chairman and founder of Narayana Health, a chain of 21 medical centers in India. He has performed more than 100,000 heart operations. In 2004 he was awarded the

Padma Shri Padma Shri (IAST: ''padma śrī''), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest Indian honours system, civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, ...

, 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: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

for his contribution to the field of affordable healthcare.

Early life and education

Shetty was born in Kinnigoli, a village in the

Dakshina Kannada Dakshina Kannada district is a district of Karnataka state in India, with its headquarters in the coastal city of Mangalore. It is part of the larger Tulu Nadu region. The district covers an area nestled in between the Western Ghats to its east ...

district,

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...

, 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 Kasturba Medical College, Manipal and Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore, together known as KMC, are two private medical colleges in coastal Karnataka, India, established in 1953.Mangalore Mangalore (), officially known as Mangaluru, is a major port city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It is located between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats about west of Bangalore, the state capital, 20 km north of Karnataka–Ker ...

. 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 (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

. 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, MC (; 26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), better known as Mother Teresa ( sq, Nënë Tereza), was an Indian-Albanian Catholic nun who, in 1950, founded the Missionaries of Charity. Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu () was bo ...

after she had a heart attack, and subsequently served as her personal physician. In 2001, Shetty founded

Narayana Hrudayalaya Narayana Health (formerly known as Narayana Hrudyalaya) is an Indian chain of multi-speciality hospitals, heart centres, and primary care facilities with its headquarters in Bengaluru, India. It was founded by Dr. Devi Shetty in the year 2000 ...

(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 Ascension is one of the largest private healthcare systems in the United States, ranking second in the United States by number of hospitals as of 2019. It was founded as a nonprofit Catholic healthcare network in 1999. By the end of 2021, Asc ...

, 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 ( ; Gujarati: 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 (per t ...

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 output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...

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

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' newspaper described him as "the

Henry Ford Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that mi ...

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 Scrub(s) may refer to: * Scrub, low shrub and grass characteristic of scrubland * Scrubs (clothing), worn by medical staff * ''Scrubs'' (TV series), an American television program * Scrubs (occupation), also called "scrub tech," "scrub nurse," o ...

and using cross ventilation instead of

air conditioning Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C or AC, is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior environment (sometimes referred to as 'comfort cooling') and in some cases also strictly controlling ...

. That has cut the price of

coronary bypass surgery Coronary artery bypass surgery, also known as coronary artery bypass graft (CABG, pronounced "cabbage") is a surgical procedure to treat coronary artery disease (CAD), the buildup of plaques in the arteries of the heart. It can relieve chest p ...

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. 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 The Government of Karnataka, abbreviated as, GoK, or simply Karnataka Government, is a democratically-elected state body with the governor as the ceremonial head to govern the Southwest Indian state of Karnataka. The governor who is appointed ...

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 *Won the 2011

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...

Innovation Awards for the ''Business process'' field. *Honorary degree,

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

in 2011 *Honorary degree, ‘Honoris Causa’ Degree of ‘Doctor of Science’ by

Indian Institute of Technology Madras Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) is a public technical university located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. As one of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), it is recognized as an Institute of National Importance and has be ...

in 2014 * Schwab Foundation's award in 2005 *

award for Medicine in 2004 * Dr. B C Roy award in 2003 *Sir M. Visvesvaraya Memorial Award in 2003 *

Ernst & Young Ernst & Young Global Limited, trade name EY, is a multinational professional services partnership headquartered in London, England. EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and Pricewaterh ...

– 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 for 2012

Television

Shetty stars in the fourth (and last) episode of

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

'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"
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References

External links

Profile - Devi Prasad Shetty
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shetty, Devi Prasad Indian cardiac surgeons Indian philanthropists Medical doctors from Bangalore 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 20th-century Indian medical doctors Scientists from Mangalore Physicians of Guy's Hospital Winners of the Nikkei Asia Prize 20th-century surgeons Indian healthcare chief executives