Episode 517
Govindappa Venkataswamy
Tue, 2018-Oct-02 01:54 UTC
Length - 3:08
Direct Link
Welcome to popular Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of a popular Wikipedia page every day.
With 399,372 views on Monday, 1 October 2018 our article of the day is Govindappa Venkataswamy.
Govindappa Venkataswamy (1 October 1918 – 7 July 2006) was an Indian ophthalmologist who dedicated his life to eliminate needless blindness. He was the founder and former chairman of Aravind Eye Hospitals. He is best known for developing a high quality, high volume, low-cost service delivery model that has restored sight to millions of people. Since inception, Aravind Eye Care System (a registered non-profit organisation) has seen over 55 million patients, and performed over 6.8 million surgeries. Over 50% of the organisation's patients pay either nothing or highly subsidised rates. Its scale and self-sustainability prompted a 1993 Harvard Business Case Study on the Aravind model.Venkataswamy was permanently crippled by rheumatoid arthritis at age 30. He trained as an ophthalmologist, and personally performed over 100,000 eye surgeries. As a government servant he helped develop and pioneer the concept of eye camps and received a Padma Shri from the Government of India in 1973.In 1992, Venkataswamy and partners of Aravind founded Aurolab, an internationally certified manufacturing facility that brought the price of the intraocular lens down to one-tenth of international prices, making it affordable for developing countries. Today, Aurolab manufactures ophthalmic pharmaceuticals, instruments and equipment, in addition to intraocular lenses, and exports to 160 countries worldwide. In 1996, under Venkataswamy's leadership, the Lions Aravind Institute for Community Ophthalmology (LAICO) was founded. LAICO is a training and consulting institute that has helped replicate the Aravind model in 347 hospitals across India and 30 other developing countries.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:54 UTC on Tuesday, 2 October 2018.
For the full current version of the article, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Govindappa_Venkataswamy.
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