Aravind Eye Hospital

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Introduction

Established in 1976 with the mission to eliminating needless blindness, Aravind is the largest and most productive eye care facility in the world. The brainchild of Dr. Venkataswamy, Aravind Eye Hospital provided free eye care and surgery to millions of needy patients apart from regular patients. Currently, there were 3 Aravind Eye Care hospitals across the state of Tamil Nadu – at Madurai, Tirunelveli and Theni. A new facility at Coimbatore was also under consideration. Since its inception, the Aravind group of hospitals had screened 3.65 million patients and performed some 335,000 cataract operations nearly 70% of which were done free of charge.

Operations

Aravind Eye Hospital adopted a unique model in order to try and achieve its vision of eradicating blindness in India.

Eye Care Delivery Model

The hospital ran 2 different kinds of hospitals – the main hospital and the free hospital.

Main Hospital

The Main Hospital functioned like a regular ophthalmology hospital. All patients admitted here paid for the hospital’s services apart from a few complicated cases which were brought over from the Free Hospital for diagnosis and treatment. The hospital provided different kinds of rooms class A, B and C, each with somewhat different levels of privacy and facilities and consequently different price levels. Treatments performed in the main hospital varied from simple treatments to extremely complex surgeries like retina detachment repair. The cataract surgeries done at the main hospital were primarily the ECCE cataract surgeries that required an operating microscope and were also more expensive since it required an IOL lens.

Free Hospital

The Free Hospital provided free eye treatment to the poorer section of the society free of charge. Patients brought in from eye camps were brought here for treatment. The patients in the Free Hospital were not provided a bed but were provided with choir mats and a small pillow. The hospital primarily provided ICCE type of cataract surgery with an ECCE recommended only when the ICCE could not be carried out due to medical reasons.

Eye Camps

The eye camps were the most important means through which Aravind was able to reach the masses. These camps were conducted in rural and semi-urban areas with the help of the local community with either a local business enterprise or a social service organization taking the lead role in organizing the event. Public announcements, newspaper advertisements, and other material were distributed to publicize the camp and increase participation in and around the town in which the camp was being held 2-3 weeks in advance.

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