Google Doodle Honours Aravind Eye Hospitals Founder Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy

Google on Monday honored eminent eye doctor and founding father of Aravind Eye Hospitals Govindappa Venkataswamy with a doodle in his birth centenary year. The doodle, visible in India, Australia, and New Zealand, options a reflected landscape blurred on one aspect and clear on the opposite with a caricature of Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy within the middle. Dr. Venkataswamy or Dr. V is thought for introducing low-priced cataract surgery and therefore the eminent 'Aravind Model' of free cataract treatment to the poor.

According to a World Health Organisation report discharged in 2012, cataract continues to be the most explanation for blindness in the globe (51%). Consistent with a paper revealed by Indian Journal of Opthalmology, 8.25 million individuals could lose visual modality in India in 2020 because of cataract.

Dr. Venkataswamy started Aravind Eye Care Associate in the Nursing exceedingly rented house with eleven beds in Madurai in 1976 with an aim to eradicate what he referred to as unneeded sightlessness. Today, Aravind has over fifty-seven centers comprising 5 tertiary care centers, 5 secondary care centers, six patient centers and forty-one vision centers across Bharat.

Born on October 1, 1918, in Vadamalapuram village in what's nowadays Virudunagar district of Tamil Nadu, Dr. Venkataswamy decided to study obstetrics reportedly after seeing three of his cousins die due to pregnancy-related complications. He graduated from Stanley Medical school in Chennai and joined the Indian Army as an MD in 1945. But Dr. Venkataswamy had to retire within the early thirties once he was diagnosed with arthritis that for good twisted his fingers out of form. This conjointly meant he couldn't continue as Associate in Nursing accoucheur.

Dr. Venkataswamy studied medical specialty and later on became the top of the medical specialty department at the govt Madurai Medical school. For future twenty years, Dr. Venkataswamy led Tamil Nadu government's initiative of mobile eye camps in rural areas. At one stage, Dr. Venkataswamy would perform one hundred surgeries in a very day. “His team of paramedics does most of the preparation work needed for every surgery, liberating doctors to try to do what they are doing best,” aforementioned Google’s diary post on Monday’s doodle.

Dr. Venkataswamy designed the thanks to addressing the matter of sightlessness in a very holistic manner. “He established eye camps in rural communities, a rehab center for blind individuals, a coaching programme for ophthalmic assistants, and in the person acting over 10,000 thriving eye surgeries,” aforementioned Google's diary post.

After retiring in 1976, Dr. Venkataswamy supported Aravind Eye Care with eleven beds. The vision was to devote six beds to those patients who couldn't pay something and to hide those prices with the opposite 5 beds, serving patients paying solely the maximum amount as they may afford. This model is a case study for varied medical establishments and governments across the world and has featured within the category of Harvard graduate school. Today, Aravind has nearly 4,000 beds and 70% of patients receive free or sponsored treatment. To place this in perspective, each year Aravind performs hour as several eye surgeries because of the National Health Service within the UK, doing thus at the common fraction of the price.

Dr. Venkataswamy was accorded the Padma Shri in 1973 and B.C. Roy Award in 2001 for his low-priced lenses that value as very little as $2 and is being exported to over 120 countries. Dr. Venkataswamy passed away on July 7, 2006, and his family continues to run Aravind with the same vision of the patriarch.