Like Mother Like Daughter Mother-Daughter Duo Outshines Odisha’s Healthcare Sector

Mother-daughter relationships are complex enough as it is. But when business is thrown into the mix, and one that is not for the faint of heart, only few duos can thrive like this team from Cuttack, Odisha. We are referring to Dr Maya Gantayet and her daughter, Suma Devi Dash, who manage Odisha’s Ashwini Group of Hospitals.

Dr Gantayet is not an unfamiliar name in Odisha and known as one of the best Neurologists and Diagnosticians in East India. After graduating from NIMHANS Bangalore with a gold medal in DM Neurology, Dr Gantayet moved back to Odisha to start her family and practice Neurology. She took voluntary retirement from a government position, and along with her plastic surgeon husband Dr Subrat K Jena to set up a 25 bedded Nursing Home focused on Neurology, Plastic Surgery and Trauma. The hospital quickly ran out of beds, and this strengthened the couple’s resolve to build a full-fledged 50-bedded Ashwini Hospital, named after the Ashwini Kumaras – the twin gods associated with divine healing and medicine in Indian mythology.

Today, Ashwini Hospital is Cuttack’s largest private medical centre, with 3 hospitals across Cuttack and Bhubaneswar and 500 beds providing tertiary-level healthcare in select super-specialty branches of medicine and surgery. It has carved a niche for itself in the critical care of patients with trauma, neuro, cardiac, pulmonary and other complex medical specialities. The Ashwini brand is a popular choice in Odisha for its honest, qualitative service and for providing advanced care to its patients.

As Dr Maya Gantayet, Managing Director and Co-founder says, “Ashwini Hospital was established in 2006 in an easily approachable area just outside the busy city centre at Cuttack. Very soon it became the hotspot for all types of emergencies. The hospital kept on scaling new heights, winning the trust of people and the medical fraternity who treated the unit as a referral centre for all their patients with complex medical and surgical problems. The hospital was empanelled by major insurance providers and public as well as private institutions and industries. Constant upgradation of technology and training, continuous optimization of standards of care was rewarded by various accolades and accreditations.”

Their eldest daughter, Suma, loved to stay involved in the growth of the company throughout this time, spending many of the vacations from her BTech course in IIT Kharagpur or from work at Lehman Brothers, Mumbai to do improvement projects or business analytics or lead other state-of-art managerial interventions. To transition into business, she went on to secure an MBA from the Wharton School, UPenn and spent two years with BCG at Boston, MA working across industries.

When COVID hit in 2020, Ashwini Hospital was the first hospital in the state that stood up and volunteered to become a dedicated COVID hospital. By this time, Suma, was working with Mass Gen Brigham, one of the largest healthcare system in Massachusetts USA developing medical AI. Seeing the role healthcare was playing in the pandemic and having always a long-standing desire to come back to India, she decided to quit and moved back to Odisha to join the company. The hospital did commendable work in the fight against COVID receiving the Chief Minister’s Award for Best Covid Hospital in the state.

Post COVID, the mother-daughter duo lead the operations of the entire enterprise with the goal of making the organization ready for the next generation. under their leadership, the group is on a rapid modernization and expansion path. In just three years, they have opened Post Graduate courses in six disciplines: Neurology, Neuro-surgery, Plastic Surgery, Orthopaedics, Emergency Medicine and Respiratory Medicine with plans to open at least three more disciples in 2024. The group has expanded their nursing college from two courses to 12+ courses across nursing and paramedical sciences. They have started Ashwini Wellness, a unit entirely dedicated to wellness, disease prevention and rehabilitation. The company has also launched a pharmacy chain that is emulated on international business models.

Dr Gantayet, being a pioneering clinician in the state is dedicated to enhancing patient outcomes, academic performance and overall clinical excellence. Suma is involved in strategic planning to identify growth opportunities; financial planning; developing protocols for operational improvements to drive efficiency and lower costs, and establishing measures to improve service levels. The mother and daughter duo don’t agree on many things – but they are completely aligned on the course of their business.

As Dr Gantayet says “as lifestyle changes and global phenomena are affecting people’s health, medical science needs to adapt and open itself to new protocols and methods. Education, therefore, plays a big role in getting the medical professionals for tomorrow ready to face challenges that nobody expect but are inevitable to appear. Setting up a hospital to treat patients will no longer be enough – the approach needs to be holistic and extend into their homes and social environments.”Says Suma, “healthcare as we know it is going to change and companies that are not innovating now will fall behind faster than they expect. Being tech-shy or thinking AI is just the new buzz word will not be enough. Clinicians and Non-clinicians alike need to be open to learn and experiment with technology. Healthcare organizations should adopt data analytics and hire people not because they have relevant experience, but because they have the right attitude to learn and deliver.”

Both of them consider themselves as entrepreneurs. Being women has never been the reason to take or not take any action. “We think about the organization and the people when taking any decision – whatever their gender, background or situation may be. The only thing we consider is how the decision would impact their work at the hospital.”

In fact, Suma led a study on the hospital’s diversity metrics and realized that over the last decade, the hospital’s hiring methods, promotion methods etc. have no indications of social biases. “We are very proud of that,” she says.

The state is eagerly watching this duo and excited about the promising future they present in the field of healthcare.