Yatra - Aravind Eye Hospital

It is ourselves we are helping, it is ourselves we are healing.

These were the words Dr.V said in the video presented to us.

This was one of the role model visits I was really looking forward to. Had read about this innovative model first in the book Change by Design. And after watching the TED talk on Aravind's contribution to eye care in India my admiration for Dr.V and his team was sky high.

The very idea of trying to replicate McDonalds in a sensitive field such as eye care, that involves peoples' sight (and their lives), does not only sound not feasible but also scary.

But, they did it. And how well have they managed to do it ?..The biggest risk one feels about such a assembly line operation would be quality. But when it comes to quality, they are better than hospitals in US and UK. And cost ? At one tenth of the global costs. Their model is now replicated in , or rather, has inspired more than 300 places in various countries.

It is, I guess, not straight forward to understand the idea until we visit them.

Visual Minutes by Rowan Watts & Marcel O'leary

The courage and the belief they must have had in themselves to even dream, imagine, and think of starting a lab/research centre  to manufacture complex things like ocular lenses on their own (since importing lens was prohibitively high) is indeed very inspiring.

To be in the place where they did all this, to hear them narrate their story, to experience the humility in the whole place was wonderful. It felt very different from a normal hospital. Different from both the government hospital kind and different from the five star hospital kind. It seemed to resemble a spiritual place. A place where a strong 'why' of what they did was very visible.

Dr.Aravind's presentation gave us a very holistic picture of the health care sector in India and why five star tertiary hospitals were not the answer to our health care problems. Why we could not blindly replicate the west. What opportunities were available in the areas such as palliative care.

Later in the day we had to choose a visit to one of their four operational areas, based on our area of interest to better understand their organization. I had a choice to visit their sophisticated lab where made the occular lenses or to visit their meditation centre. Could choose only one. I was surprised with my choice…