GRAND CAYMAN-St. Louis-based Ascension Health Alliance and Bangalore, India-based Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospitals have announced a joint plan to build a $2 billion health care development here on the largest of the Cayman Islands. The site is going to be called Health City.

Narayana, which runs a complex of health centers in southern India, is led by chairman and managing director Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty, who has been working with Ascension president and CEO Anthony Tersigni for two years to create the project here. Shetty’s methods are to treat any patient regardless of ability to pay. “This joint effort will provide…opportunities to examine and learn about different approaches to providing healthcare to all with special attention to those who are poor and vulnerable, focusing on innovative ways to provide high-quality medical care at lower cost,” he said.

The venture plans to break ground in August. The project will be built in phases during the next 15 years on a 200-acre site. Phase one will include 140 beds that should open in early 2013, while the rest of the project will include a tertiary-care hospital, an educational facility, a biotech park and an assisted living facility. The hospital will provide services such as surgery, cancer treatment, nuclear medicine, organ transplant and orthopedics in up to 2,000 beds.