the man who brings light by claude arpi

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The man who brings lightBy Claude Arpi Daily Pioneer May 13

2003http://dailypioneer.com/archives2/default12.asp?main_variable=OPED&file_name=opd3%2Etxt&counter_img=3&phy_path_it=E%3A%5Cdailypioneer%5Carchives2%5Cmay1303Perhaps

it is because India is my adopted country and I can still remember the two-fifth

of this life spent in France, that something deeply upsets me here. It is the

scant respect for what is "made in India". It is only occasionally, when

something comes back to India after a videshi round, that it gets its due

respect.One recent proof of this is the exaggerated media reaction to the death

of Kalpana Chawla. She was undoubtedly a great professional. Nobody can deny

that the end of the Explorer shuttle was tragic, but the fact is that today if

someone was to realise a similar or even a greater feat in India, nobody will

speak or write about him or her. It is a real tragedy that something purely

"made in India" is not treated as great and valuable as a videshi product or

realisation.I recently came across someone who should be a role model for the

Indians, a national hero. Unfortunately, very few Indians even know his name.

Dr G Venkataswamy, known to his friends and colleagues as "Dr V", was born in

1918 in a small village in Tamil Nadu. After receiving a medical degree from

Chennai's Stanley Medical College in 1944, he joined the Indian Army Medical

Corps, but had to retire in 1948 after developing severe rheumatoid arthritis.

The disease left his fingers crippled. This handicap changed his life. With

indomitable courage, he returned to medical school and earned a masters degree

in ophthalmology and decided that he would operate patients. Through years of

hard work and perseverance, Dr V managed to train himself in holding a scalpel

to perform cataract surgery. Today, after 50 years, he has performed over one

lakh eye operations. And that is not all. In 1976, after retirement, he decided

to start a crusade to eradicate needless blindness from India. His vision was to

provide standardised services to the rich and the poor on par with what existed

in the Western hospitals while each patient would be treated the same way

without taking his income into account.To achieve this, the Aravind Eye

Hospitals would combine modern technology, latest management practices and

compassionate care. In 1976, he opened his first 11-bed hospital in a rented

house at Madurai. A year later, an additional building which could accommodate

30 patients, was built. Today, the Aravind Eye Hospitals have five units in

Tamil Nadu. The latest addition in Pondicherry was inaugurated this year by his

friend, President APJ Abdul Kalam.The Pondicherry hospital has, like the other

units, a high ratio of free beds: 600 beds will be free while only 150 will be

paying. The service provided will be same for all. In the year 2000 alone, the

Aravind Eye Hospitals handled over one million outpatient visits and performed

nearly 2,00,000 surgeries. Who in India knows that Dr V's hospitals, through

their network of medical facilities and outreach activities, treat the largest

number of eye patients in the world? Shouldn't we feel proud?One of the guiding

concepts of Dr V is the standardisation of the operations. His model is not a

swadeshi model, but the McDonald chain of restaurants. About 10 years ago, he

asked a Harvard Business School professor: "Tell me, can cataract surgery be

marketed like hamburgers? Don't you call it social marketing or something

similar? See, in America, McDonald's have mastered the art of mass marketing.

We have to do something like that to clear the backlog of 20 million blind in

India." His concept was simple. First, all operations had to be standardised to

cut the costs. His target were the penniless. The problem was that often the

illiterate people did not know they could regain their eyesight, and that too

for free! The trick was to go to villages, provide free check-ups, detect the

cases of needless blindness and invite the visually impaired to come to one of

the centers for the operation.The management of these "recruiting" camps is so

well organised today that many American universities come to study this model

which, hopefully, could be replicated elsewhere in the world. Another

innovation which helps the self-sufficiency of these hospitals is that instead

of importing raw materials, like lenses, sutures, needles, etc., Dr V

manufactures these in India, with the same high quality standards as the West,

but at a reasonable cost.President Kalam wrote a poem titled The Man who brings

Light into Life in honour of his friend. But the question remains. Why isn't Dr

V the subject of articles in the Indian press? It would perhaps inspire

hundreds of vocations like his and India's face could be changed. ------ End of

message -------Join this India movement

at:http://www.indiacause.com/IC_JML.htmThank you. Mahendra

Joshihttp://www.IndiaCause.comRepresentation of Indians in North America and

across the world___________________

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