$800 heart surgery

• Image Credit: AFP
• In this picture taken on February 7, 2013 patients and staff gather at the post-operative pediatrics ward of the Narayana Hrudayalaya cardiac-care hospital in Bangalore.

Bengaluru: What if hospitals were run like a mix of Wal-Mart and a low-cost airline? The result might be something like the chain of “no-frills” Narayana Hrudayalaya clinics in southern India.

Using pre-fabricated buildings, stripping out air-conditioning and even training visitors to help with post-operative care, the group believes it can cut the cost of heart surgery to an astonishing $800 (Dh2,938).

“Today, healthcare has got phenomenal services to offer. Almost every disease can be cured and if you can’t cure patients, you can give them meaningful life,” says company founder Devi Shetty, one of the world’s most famous heart surgeons.

“But what percentage of the people of this planet can afford it? A hundred years after the first heart surgery, less than 10 per cent of the world’s population can,” he said from his office in hi-tech hub Bengaluru.