A heart surgeon who pioneered low-cost medical care in India has expanded his operation to the Caribbean with last week’s opening of a 104-bed surgical hospital in the Cayman Islands.
The $70 million Health City Cayman Islands is positioned to prosper because although it is geographically close to the United States it does not fall under American regulations, according to Dr. Devi Shetty, its founder.
Dr. Shetty’s organisation Narayana Health operates 6,300 hospital beds across the world, but he aims to expand that figure to 30,000 beds in the coming years, according to India’s Economic Times newspaper.
In the Cayman Islands, where the facility is expected to offer care at rates at least 30 percent lower than in the US, the complex is expected to eventually grow to a $2 billion investment over the next decade, with 2,000 hospital beds, a medical university, and an assisted-living centre.
“The health care models in the US are considered the ultimate and keenly studied by the entire world, but the regulatory restrictions in that country are so stifling that innovations in health care delivery are very difficult to implement,” Mr. Shetty said. “By building such a health care institution in a British protectorate right outside the US regulatory structure, which can work with US doctors and experts for the US patients, one can show what is possible in health care even in the developed world and at what cost.”
In order to attract the organisation, the Caymanian government had to amend some of its laws and agree to license Indian medical doctors, 70 of who will be included in the new hospital’s staff.
Dr. Shetty’s organisation has been successful in India in part because it performs specialised surgeries on a large scale and keeps a strict watch on costs in order to operate inexpensively, according to the Economic Times.
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