Ravilla Thulasiraj
Organization: Aravind Eye Hospital
Year Founded: 1976
Country: India
Website: www.aravind.org
Geographic Area of Impact: Global.
Model: Hybrid Non-Profit
Focus: Health.
Schwab Fellow of the World Economic Forum The Innovation Dr Govindappa Venkataswamy (“Dr V”) and his team grew an eleven-bed eye clinic in an old temple city of Madurai in South India into one of the largest and most productive eye care facilities in the world. Taking its services to the doorstep of rural India, the Aravind Eye Care System treats over 2.3 million patients each year, two-thirds of them for free or at a steeply subsidized fee. The hospital is an international resource and training centre that is revolutionizing hundreds of eye care programmes in developing countries. With less than 1% of the country's ophthalmic manpower, Aravind performs about 5% of all cataract surgeries in India. Since its inception, Aravind has performed close to three million surgeries and handled over twenty-five million outpatient visits. By designing services attractive to the wealthier patients who pay market rates and by providing low cost services for the poor who get the services free or at a steeply subsidized rate, Aravind is fully self-sustaining in spite of the full paying clients accounting for only 35% of all patients. This has been achieved without compromising the quality of care received by poor patients. Aravind has pioneered this model built on the principles that large volume, high quality services with appropriate pricing, results in sustainability and can in fact generate adequate surplus for expansion and growth. Background Worldwide, 37 million people are blind and an additional 124 million are visually impaired. The global economic burden of blindness is around US$25 billion per year. Almost 90% of the blind live in developing countries that face such challenges as growing population, inadequate infrastructure, low per capita income, illiteracy and diseases in epidemic proportions. In India, an estimated twelve million are blind, more than in any other country. 60% of blindness there is due to cataracts that are curable. Given the magnitude of the problem, the government alone cannot meet the needs of all at risk. The problem is further compounded by the fact that 70% of India's one billion people reside in rural areas while about 80% of the 11,000 Ophthalmologists in the country live in urban areas. Realizing this predicament, Dr V. established an alternate health care model that would supplement the efforts of the government but remain self-supporting. In 1976, he established the Govel Trust that spawned the network of hospitals that now comprise the Aravind Eye Care System. In a country like India where poverty levels are high and social problems numerous, blindness can have devastating implications for society. Aravind performs over two hundred and seventy thousand sight-restoring surgeries each year and a majority of them are such patients. This enables them to re-enter the work force and support themselves and their families. This effort has been recognized by the Champalimaud Foundation which awarded ‘Champalimaud Foundation Vision Award 2007’. In 2008 Aravind Eye Care System received the ‘Gates Award for Global Health’. Strategy Aravind has redefined eye care in developing countries by producing low-cost intraocular lenses and other ophthalmic supplies to make eye care affordable. To bring about cost-efficiency in human resources Aravind has developed a cadre of mid-level ophthalmic personnel who enhance the efficiency and quality of eye care. It has also developed outreach services with community participation to bridge the rural-urban divide. The Aravind Eye Hospital has now developed into a 3900-plus-bed multi-hospital system providing eye care with specialty clinics and comprehensive support facilities. The retina and vitreous service was the first specialty clinic established at Aravind and is now in its twenty-third year. The other specialty services at Aravind are glaucoma, cornea, neuro-ophthalmology, orbit & Oculoplasty, uvea, low vision, paediatric ophthalmology and strabismus. In addition, there are several support services and departments at Aravind. These include ocular microbiology laboratory, instrument maintenance laboratory, patient counseling services, library & information centre, radiology department and biochemistry laboratory. Aravind partners with over a thousand community organizations and international NGOs such as the Lions Club International, Sight Savers International, Seva Foundation, International Eye Foundation and ORBIS International. It is also linked with a number of prestigious medical schools and public health institutes. The World Health Organization has designated it as a Collaborating Centre for the Prevention of Blindness. With funding from the Lions Club International, Aravind established the Lions Aravind Institute of Community Ophthalmology (LAICO) to help replicate the principles and practices that have worked well at Aravind. LAICO now works with more than 200 hospitals located all over India as well as in the developing world and has been helping them replicate the Aravind model in their own setting. The Entrepreneur Dr V. was born in 1918 to a farming family in a small village in South India. He received his medical degree from the Stanley Medical College in Chennai and joined the Indian Army Medical Corps. He was discharged from Army service in 1948 after developing severe rheumatoid arthritis, a disease that left his fingers crippled and changed the course of his life. Despite his condition, he returned to medical school and earned a Masters degree in Ophthalmology. Dr V. trained himself to hold a scalpel and to perform cataract surgery. In time, he personally performed over one hundred thousand successful eye surgeries. Dr. V remained Chairman of the Govel Trust until he passed away in July 2006. Thulasiraj Ravilla was born in 1951 in a small village in South India. He received his MBA degree from the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta and continued to work there for a multinational company, British Paints (now called Berger Paints). In 1981, Dr V. was in need of an administrator to put his ideas and vision into action. Thulsi left his corporate job and joined Aravind for a fraction of his previous salary. He then spent about a year at the University of Michigan as a visiting scholar to get an academic foundation in Hospital and Health Management. Since then, he has been part of the leadership team that built Aravind into the world’s largest provider of eye care. In 1992 he developed the Lions Aravind Institute of Community Ophthalmology as a unit of Aravind Eye Care System and continues to head it. Through this thousands of eye care professionals and over 250 eye hospitals worldwide have been trained and mentored in adopting best practices for more effective and sustainable delivery of eye care to their communities. He also served for five years as the regional chair of the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness for the South East Asia Region. In addition, he founded in 2003 “VISION 2020 The Right to Sight- India”, a consortium of voluntary eye care institutions in India and headed it till 2008.
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