Devi Prasad Shetty - Life and Career

Life and Career

Dr. Devi Shetty was born in a family of Kinnigoli,in the erstwhile South Canara district, Karnataka. The eighth of nine children, he decided to become a heart surgeon after hearing about a South African surgeon who had just performed the world's first heart transplant from his fifth grade teacher. 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. In Kolkata he operated on Mother Theresa after she had a heart attack and subsequently served as her personal physician. 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 Dr. Shetty's father-in-law. Dr. Shetty has many patients and admirers in South Asia and other parts of the world.

Dr.Shetty believes that, "Charity is not scaleable. If you give something free, you will run out of money". He started Narayana Hrudayalaya because he could not find any employers who understood him. 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, Dr. Shetty announced an agreement with TriMedx, a subsidiary of Ascension Health, to create a joint venture aimed at taking healthcare to every nook and cranny of India. He said “What we intend to offer is how we can extend the lifecycle of a costly MRI or any other major equipment and almost double the life of the equipment with our joint expertise”. Ascension Health is the largest Catholic and largest non-profit health system in USA. TriMedx is believed to have saved US $166 Million for its patients till date and hence strategically is a good choice for a partner in the venture. 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. The facility is being built at a cost of US $60 Million aimed at making affordable health care accessible to the American citizens who are uninsured or require surgeries that are not covered under their insurance plan.