From his early days as a doctor, G Venkataswamy wanted to help the poor
He was bed-ridden for 18 months. Dr V created a nutrition rehabilitation centre, where children stayed for 21 days and received food and medical care. Around 1971, when M Karunanidhi travelled to the US to have his eye condition treated, Dr V went with him, and showed the then chief minister Baltimore’s communiy screening.
Because they could not afford treatment, “At Madurai’s Government Erskine Hospital, now Government Rajaji Hospital, he encountered rural patients who had become blind.
“Right from his early days as a doctor, he wanted to help the poor,” says R D Ravindran, chairman of Aravind Hospitals. As a medical student in the 1940s, G Venkataswamy (popularly known as Dr V) had his sights set on obstetrics. But during the Second World War, he served as a physician, treating Japanese prisoners of war on the Singapore-Malaya front when rheumatoid arthritis forced him to return home. The disease left his fingers twisted, and eventually dashed his dream as he was now barred from pursuing obstetrics. Dr V turned to ophthalmology instead. Their mothers learned to prepare vitamin-A-rich meals using local greens. Treatment did not end when they left the ward; each mother carried the knowledge back to her village. After they returned, outreach eye camps were adopted as a Tamil Nadu govt programme.
Charges remained 40% below those at comparable hospitals. It created skilled employment for 10,900 women,” says G Natchiyar, director-emeritus of Aravind. “Over the years, Aravind has conducted 75,000 camps, including 3,450 last year. We have brought an estimated 1.5 crore people into eye screening across Tamil Nadu.”
“Aravind adopted sutured eye surgery early, drawing doctors to Madurai to learn the technique. ” Patients could choose the paying or free section, but the standard of clinical care remained the same. Within two years, the hospital became a charitable trust and opened a treatment ward in a cashew grove. The facility was little more than a shed with a tin roof. The sutures were thick enough to be seen with the naked eye. In effect, the income from one paying patient could support treatment for two others. Patient volumes financed further expansion. Soon, Aravind had doctors specialised in retinal surgery, paediatric ophthalmology and corneal care. Patients began coming in from across the country for treatment. “Aravind recruited young women from villages who had completed Class XII and trained them in refraction, counselling, ward care and operating-theatre work.
Surgeons began at 4am, operating under focus lamps with simple magnification, and stopped before the heat became unbearable.