ET Deep Dive: How PE Firms Are Taking Over Heathcare in Kerala
5/24/202613 min
Kerala has long been India’s healthcare model — high literacy, strong outcomes, a diaspora that pays for quality care. Now, private equity giants KKR and Blackstone are betting big on it, pumping nearly $900 million into the state’s hospitals in just two years. For global funds, the logic is simple: chronic disease, ageing patients, NRI money. For doctors like Charlie Cherian, who spent decades building a community hospital from scratch, the math is more personal. Can independent, affordable, doctor-run hospitals survive the corporate onslaught? And what happens to patients when healthcare becomes just another asset class?
Reported by Alenjith K Johny, narrated for audio by Anirban Chowdhury
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsAnirban Chaudhuri· Host0:00
[intro music] Hello, and welcome to ET Deep Dive, The Economic Times best-reported stories in audio. Today's episode is based on Alanjith K. John's story on how private equity funds are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into Kerala's healthcare sector, reshaping a system long dominated by independent doctors and family-run hospitals. It's Sunday the twenty-fourth of May. I'm Anirban Chowdhury. This is the morning brief. [intro music] Dr. Charlie Cherian spent decades building St. Thomas Hospital in Malakkara, a small town in Pathanamthitta, Kerala. Now, he fears the next decade could undo all of it, not because of anything he's done wrong, but because of a new class of investors entering the field, armed with more money than he could have ever imagined. He says, "The marquee investors in this field will only push us out. As a doctor-owned hospital, it was