The Indian Hospital feature of Al Jazeera

From Al Jazeera

This is a series of features, a 1 hour documentary of Indian Hospital.  The main feature of course is Dr. David Shetty, a cardiac surgeon, and philonthropist who may have revolutionized the modern hospital system.  His vision is that of Walmart of the hospital business or Henry Ford.  Can he bring his system of cheap cures to the world?

Some of the important features of the hospital;  Naraynana Hospital are:

1.  Economies of scale.   Ordering more, buyers clout due to more patients drive down costs.

2.  Help desk.  No patient is turned down on account of his capacity to pay:

     1. Govt help is obtained;

     2.  Foundations that help patients are solicited;

     3.  Creating account for private, small donors

3.  Partners  -  Dr. David Shetty partnernered with  a Japanese supplier to have hemodialysis price driven down to $10.00 per session (about P400.00 vs P2,000 minimum here in the Philippines (1/5 the cost)



A vision for a global healthcare

Dr. Shetty says that the 20th century was driven by machines;  the 21st century will be driven by health care.  India produces the most number of health care workers in the world, and most number of pharma firms outside of  US.  The missing link is the financial part, the affordability of patient to pay such health care.

One solution is micro insurance.  Dr. Shetty established the Yeshaswini micro insurance of just $0.11 that can cover the cost of one heart surgery or over 1,000 other surgeries.  He suggests that it is easy to add $0.18 to monthly cell phone bill to be part of health insurance.  He says that the govt must shift from health care provider to one of health insurance provider.

It is possible to roll out this concept world wide.  We need more facilities to train health care workers and hospitals.  WHO estimates shortage of health workers to be 4 million but he believes it is more than that.

The complete article: