Dr. Devi Shetty, Chairman of Narayana Health and the founder of Health City Cayman Islands, has brought the Caribbean tertiary care hospital’s role in his transformation of global healthcare to the international stage at the GREAT Festival of Innovation in Hong Kong.
“We built the Cayman Health City with the idea of transforming health care of the Caribbean region and the Western Hemisphere – and perhaps the rest of the world. We have a phenomenal opportunity to use technology and make health care safer for the patient, accessible and affordable. Using the Health City with technology, we can cover the healthcare of the entire Caribbean region,” he said.
Dr. Shetty was speaking at the UK-sponsored event on March 22, when he highlighted Health City as an example of his ongoing mission to make high-quality, affordable healthcare more accessible to more people in more places.
Speaking about the benefits of the event, he said, “And this is a fantastic platform for us to show to rest of the world what we are doing, and what we are capable of doing. We need to showcase what we are doing. With the support of the government of the Cayman Islands, we built a phenomenal story. Now the rest of the world should listen to the story and possibly reproduce it.”
While in Hong Kong, Dr. Shetty also met with the Cayman Islands Government delegation to the conference, which included Premier Hon. Alden McLaughlin, Minister of Health Hon. Dwayne Seymour, Minister of Financial Services Hon. Tara Rivers, and Minister of Commerce Hon. Joseph Hew, in addition to other government officials from the British Overseas Territory.
Dr. Shetty, a renowned heart surgeon, philanthropist and head of India’s largest private healthcare system, was invited by event organisers to speak on “Living Longer, Living Better. He was also part of a panel discussion on the topic along with Dr. Steven Fang, CEO and Co-Founder Invitrocue Ltd and Justin Howden, Global Head of Government Affairs and Industry Development, H&H Group (Swiss Wellness).
Dr. Shetty noted the huge existing need for greater access to healthcare around the world.
“Globally we are spending trillions of dollars on healthcare annually but still hundreds of millions of people do not have access to affordable quality healthcare,” he said.
Highlighting the role he feels education should play in the transformation of how healthcare is delivered in the Caribbean, Dr. Shetty explained future expansion plans for Health City Cayman Islands.
“We will be building a medical school, nursing school, paramedical school soon. We would like every child born in the Cayman Islands or Caribbean region to look at becoming world-class doctors, world-class nurses, medical technicians, scientists. With the onset of medical college, education institutions, the whole perspective of the younger generation will change. And that is important for the Caribbean region, important for the Cayman Islands, important for the rest of the word so that you are cared for by your own people, not outsiders,” he asserted.
Hon. Dwayne Seymour, Cayman’s Minister for Health said, “I’m excited that we have been able to showcase to the attendees at this conference the innovations that are being used in healthcare especially in Cayman. The people here are excited to see what Dr. Shetty and his partners are achieving in Cayman. But what is also important to me are the opportunities being created for young Caymanians to have more career options in the medical field. Dr. Shetty’s plans to build a medical school as part of the Health City campus will aid this cause greatly”
Healthcare was one of the central topics for the second day of the four-day GREAT Festival at the Asian Society in Hong Kong, with the day’s overall theme being “LIVE.” The first day’s theme was “WORK”, the third day focused on topics under the heading of “PLAY”, and the final day was all about education with the theme of “LEARN.”
