Reward of Work

Here is an essay on Dr V of Aravind Eye Hospital (world’s largest eye hospital).
It is an old essay but a rare “gem” beautifully written by Harriet Rubin. Each time one reads it – it moves one’s heart !
Each para is a gem. Here is an extract:

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Since opening day in 1976, Aravind has given sight to more than 1 million people in India. Dr. V. may not run a business, but it's important to note that Aravind's surgeons are so productive that the hospital has a gross margin of 40%, despite the fact that 70% of the patients pay nothing or close to nothing, and that the hospital does not depend on donations.

Dr. V. has done it by constantly cutting costs, increasing efficiency, and building his market.

It costs Aravind about US$10 to conduct a cataract operation. It costs hospitals in the United States about $1,650 to perform the same operation. Aravind keeps costs minimal by putting two or more patients in an operating room at the same time. Hospitals in the United States don't allow more than one patient at a time in a surgery, but Aravind hasn't experienced any problems with infections. Aravind's doctors have created equipment that allows a surgeon to perform one 10 – 20 minute operation, then swivel around to work on the next patient -- who is already in the room, prepped, ready, and waiting. Post-op patients are wheeled out, and new patients are wheeled in.

Aravind has managed to beat costs in every area of its service: The hospital's own Aurolab, begun in 1992, pioneered the production of high-quality, low-cost intraocular lenses. Aurolab now produces 700,000 lenses per year, a quarter of which are used at Aravind. The rest are exported to countries all over the world -- except to the United States. (In order for Aravind to get its lenses approved for sale in the United States, it would have to pay for an FDA study and a clinical study, which the hospital cannot afford!) Aravind even has its own guest house, and students and physicians from around the world come to teach, study, observe, practice -- and boost their training. Poles for stretchers? They're made from bamboo that grows in Dr. V.'s garden. "We also have the $5 pole, which is bright and shiny," says Dr. Natchiar, "but we prefer these bamboo poles." […]

For the team in paediatric surgery, the morning has been routine, another brief, successful operation that will give sight to an infant. I, an outside observer, provide the morning's only unusual element. Dr. V. has assigned me my own private nurse, in case the sight of the operation makes me faint. I don't faint -- I wet through my surgical mask with tears. The surgical team has never seen this reaction before. But what I have seen -- five adults hovering over a tiny infant and light flooding into a once-blind eye -- is a study in selflessness, tenderness, and art that I have never seen before. […]

Here is another clue to the mystery: The reward for work is not what you get out of it but what you become from it. […]

'The poor' is a vulgar term. Would you call Christ a poor man? To think of certain people as 'the poor' puts you in a superior position, blinds you to the ways in which you are poor. […]

We may not admit the poverty of our own lives, but we feel it. Soon we may even see it; economic shifts will thrust the reality of it in our face. We are headed for the cyclone, and if we are blind to our soul, we will be uprooted in this new world order. […]

They put a pair of glasses on people for whom the purchase represents a day and a half's pay. "People can't believe it," says Dr. V. "Often they can see clearly for the first time in their lives. They usually say, 'Thank you,' and go away -- with the glasses on. The next day, they come back ready to make the purchase. This is how we sell 1,000 pairs of eyeglasses per day."

Give people a new experience, one that deeply changes their lives, make it affordable, and eventually you change the whole world. And, your customers become your marketers!
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I wonder what it takes to discover that “human spirit” residing in all of us.

Dr V passed away in 2006 at the age of 88 but his “human spirit” lives on at Aravind Eye. If you get a chance do visit Aravind Eye in Madurai. Having visited it, I relate very well with this industrialist’s experience.

“An industrialist from Delhi once came to Aravind and said, "I need to build a hospital, and I'm very much impressed with this one. Could you come to Delhi and start a hospital for me?" Dr. V. replied, "You have all the money you need. It shouldn't be hard for you to put up a hospital in Delhi." "No," the industrialist said, "I want a hospital with the Aravind culture. People are cordial here. They seem to respect more than money. There is a certain amount of inner communion or compassion that flows from them. How do you do it?"

The entire essay is here…

The Perfect Vision of Dr. V.
http://www.fastcompany.com/node/42111/print