Narayana Hrudayalaya Group, the face behind the Health City initiative in India, has inked pact with the government of Cayman Island to build a Health City in its capital city, Grand Cayman. The project will see an investment of Rs 200 crore for the facility and is expected to be commissioned in two years after its construction which will commence in a few months.

The agreement was signed by the Premiere of Cayman Island McKeeva Bush and Minister of Health J Mark Scotland and Dr Devi Prasad Shetty, chairman and managing director, Narayana Hrudayalaya. "We entered into a joint venture with the Cayman Government which has provided major concessions to help us to build the multi super specialty hospital of 2000 beds. It will be built in four phases covering 100 acres of land. Phase-I will have a 200-bed super specialty hospital for heart, cancer, ortho and gastro intestinal surgery," Dr Shetty said.

The main purpose of building a hospital in this region is based on the impact of health reforms in USA. We believe that the waiting list for operations will force the insurance companies to send their patients to Cayman Island which is a first world country less than one hour from Miami, according to Dr. Shetty.

The Cayman government had recognized the qualifications of all our doctors to work as senior specialists in this hospital. In addition, the government has also approached us to set up a world class Medical University which will cater to the needs of students from US, Canada, South America and Caribbean region. In the first phase, the hospital will need about 800 staff to service 200 beds, and 150 of those workers will be Caymanians, he added.

Part of the Health City will have a large facility of assisted living for elderly Americans. The project will be commissioned in two years.

In December 2009, Narayana Hrudayalaya had announced its plans to build an over 500-bed multi-speciality hospital in Malaysia. The real estate agencies had shown interest to construct the facility for us, said Dr Shetty.

Further, the Karnataka government had allotted 14 acres of land to the group in Mysore to start a 2,000-bed 'health city'.