Retinoblastoma is the most common cancer of the eye among children, if diagnosed and treated early; children with retinoblastoma have an excellent prognosis. But the treatment is complicated, involving surgery, radiation treatment and multiple cycles of chemotherapy and blood replacement – treatment which is too expensive for most Indian families. Aravind doctors volunteer their time, but the donations received from Global Giving help us pay specialists and provide blood replacement and medication. 

Today we would like to share with you a story of one of the patients who received free treatment at Aravind with the help of your support.  The parents of a one year old child (patient) whose right eye was enucleated due to retinoblastoma; however the left eye was cured at Aravind Eye Hospital were thankful to all.

Rajesh (real name shielded), a one year old child, was brought to Aravind Eye Hospital -Madurai for a checkup when he developed a white spot on his right eye. After preliminary examination, a CT Scan was taken and the report confirmed retinoblastoma in the eye. The parents were informed and advised chemotherapy for the child. The shocked parents consented for the treatment which was given once in 23 days. In spite of the prolonged chemotherapy, the tumor could not be cured and the right eyeball had to be enucleated. By that time the disease had spread to the left eye however, it was in the initial stage.

One could understand the agony and grief of the parents to whom Rajesh was the only child. When chemotherapy was started on the second eye, they prayed and waited with hope that the eye will be saved somehow, so that the child’s life will not become gloomy.

When Rajesh was in his second year, his left eye was examined and the tumor was still there in a small size. Then it was given laser treatment and chemotherapy was also continued. On his second birthday, doctor examined his left eye and found the tumor completely cured. This good news sent the parents to the height of joy and they thanked God and the doctor for retaining the paradise of vision (atleast in one eye) for their son. They were advised to bring the baby for a follow up once in 3 months.

In the meanwhile Rajesh’s right eye socket was fixed with a prosthetic eye ball which looked like a normal eye. On seeing this, the parents felt as if he had regained the original eye. Now, the gloom of despondency in the small family has disappeared with the dawn of a bright light of joy.

Aravind Eye Care System is thankful to all the donors who join hands with Aravind in providing free treatment to the underserved and help further their mission of “eliminating needless blindness”.

Links:

• Aravind Eye Foundation
• Aravind Eye Care System
• AEF Newsletter

Aravind Eye Care System would like to thank our Global Giving donors for their support for restoring eye sight for many children suffering from retinoblastoma or eye cancer.  The funds received for the year 2011 were allocated to fund eye surgery and treatment for 44 children covered under the Ring of Hope program in the Madurai area(Tamilnadu -India). 

Established in 2004, the Ring of Hope Program helps patients, most often children, who have life- threatening cancers like retinoblastoma. Retinoblastoma is the most common cancer of the eye among children and is responsible for over five percent of the blindness among children in India. With a rate of incidence of one in 15,000 infants, India has one of the largest numbers of retinoblastoma patients in the world. If left untreated, the disease can cause permanent blindness and death. If diagnosed and treated early, children with retinoblastoma have an excellent prognosis. But the treatment is complicated, involving surgery, radiation treatment and multiple cycles of chemotherapy and blood replacement – treatment which is too expensive for most Indian families. Aravind doctors volunteer their time, but your support help us to pay specialists and provide blood replacement and medication.

Under this program Aravind provided free treatment and surgery to all the patients and restored sight for most of these children  who would not be able to afford this treatment with our your support. 

Links:

• Aravind Eye Foundation -Projects- Patient Support
• Aravind Eye Foundation News

Dear Friends,

Dr. V. welcomed change, and was constantly challenging himself and those around him to find new solutions to an old problem – needless blindness.

Friends of Aravind is changing, too, and in the coming months, we will launch our new web site and new name, Aravind Eye Foundation. While we will always be friends, the new name underlines the critical relationship that our supporters have with the people and activities of Aravind Eye Care System in India and around the world. Without your assistance, Aravind would not be able to extend its model of self-sustaining, compassionate care to new areas of development. Change takes some time, so if you are planning to remember Aravind in your year-end giving, please still write checks to Friends of Aravind

Your Donations at Work

Aravind is internationally renowned for its self-sustaining model of compassionate care – no one is turned away on the basis of ability to pay. Your donations make it possible for us to help those who need extensive and long-term treatment and to provide food and housing for patients and their families who must travel many miles to reach an Aravind hospital. Thanks to your generous donations, Aravind Eye Foundation supported the following patient care projects:

Ring of Hope Fund:

Twelve children suffering from devastating eye cancers received treatment at Aravind completely free of cost, including radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and surgery, as well as room and board for the patient and family.

Food for Sight: 2000 camp patients received food during their three-day-stay for free cataract surgery at Aravind hospitals.

Youth Vision Project: 2000 school children in the Pondicherry area were screened for refractive errors and about 600 children have received free spectacles as of September 2010.

Many more children are scheduled to receive free spectacles in the next few months.

Research Fellowships: Two Fellows, who are researching infections and genetic diseases of the eye prevalent in India, received grants to support their work. Their research focuses on identifying possible causes of these various diseases and improved methods of prevention and treatment.Your Donations at Work

Aravind is internationally renowned for its self-sustaining model of compassionate care – no one is turned away on the basis of ability to pay. Your donations make it possible for us to help those who need extensive and long-term treatment and to provide food and housing for patients and their families who must travel many miles to reach an Aravind hospital. Thanks to your generous donations, Aravind Eye Foundation supported the following patient care projects:

For more news about Aravind Eye Care System, please visit the link for the news letter -Journey Towards Light.

Warmest regards,
The Board of Aravind Eye Foundation

Links:

• Journey towards Light - 2010 edition - FOA newsletter

Aravind is internationally renowned for its self-sustaining model of compassionate care – no one is turned away on the basis of ability to pay.  Your donations make it possible for us to help those who need extensive and long-term treatment and to provide food and housing for patients and their families who must travel many miles to reach an Aravind hospital. Thanks to your generous donations, to Aravind Eye Care System supported the following patient care projects:

Ring of Hope Fund:   Twelve children suffering from devastating eye cancers received treatment at Aravind completely free of cost, including radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and surgery, as well as room and board for the patient and family. 

 2 year old Nandhini, was brought to Aravind, when she was unable to open her right eye and had been waking-up crying for last ten days.  Nandhini lost her sight in the right eye a year ago, and when the doctors examined her swollen red eye they discovered that the child had developed retinoblastoma in the right eye and the counselor advised the parents that if the eye was not removed, the cancer may spread to other parts and endanger the child’s life itself eventually. So it was inevitable to remove the eye to save the child. After the parents consent the diseased eye was removed Nandhini was treated free of cost with the support of your donations.  Now, after 3 cycles of completed chemotherapy Nandhini’s parents are happy that their child’s life is out of danger.

Most Aravind Hospitals and Community Centers are located in different parts of Tamil Nadu, India, with central office in Madurai.

Links:

• Friends of Aravind
• Aravind Eye Care System

Bill Brower is a Field Program Officer with GlobalGiving who visited our partners’ projects throughout South and Southeast Asia. On June 14th he visited Aravind clinics, labs and other facilities in Madurai. His “Postcard” from the visit:

“Dr. V.”, the late founder of Aravind, realized great efficiency gains in eye surgeries could be realized by minimizing the time each patient spent with the surgeon. The skills the surgeon has are so highly specialized and valuable that it is wasteful, in a sense, to take up his or her time doing other things. So multiple patients, attending staff and instruments are cycled in and out of the surgery room—allowing Aravind surgeons to do four times as many surgeries annually as their colleagues elsewhere in India. Americans might cringe at this lack of bedside manner, but in the face of an overwhelming need and very limited resources this approach allows many more to be treated, including those who could otherwise not afford it.

Aravind has designed its pricing scheme so that every paying cataract customer supports two free or surgeries for low-income individuals. Those who are able to pay some money are given a subsidized rate. This model is economically self-sufficient; there is even money left over to reinvest in the organization and expansion. Other specialty surgeries are more expensive and this is where outside donations, including those from GlobalGiving, primarily go.

The facility for free patients is a chaotic jumble of humanity (see the attached picture)—a good sign considering they spend $0 on marketing or publicity. There seemed to be an underlying order that was getting people where they needed to be—for a consultation, surgery prep, prescriptions, check-ups. A steady stream of people with bandages over one eye was flowing out of the clinic.

I also saw Aravind’s production facility, Aurolab, where they manufacture their own lenses, sutures, instruments, blades and even pharmaceuticals. This was something I was continuously impressed by: Aravind’s dedication to doing everything in-house. Research, manufacturing, maintenance, trainings, outreach—all is done by Aravind employees. This may be an offshoot of being family-run (most of the management is related); whatever the reason it certainly makes them more self-sufficient.

Several new buildings were going up in the Aravind complex when I was there. If the principles which have guided them thus far continue to permeate the organization while expanding, unnecessary blindness has a potent adversary in southern India. Given that one-third of the world’s blind are in India and life expectancy for them is 2.5 years after going blind, this growth seems to be just what the doctor ordered.

Links:

• Video of the free clinic in Madurai

Dear Friends,

2010 has been a truly action-packed year for Aravind and well into its fourth decade of blindness prevention work the organization shows no signs of slowing down. The organization seems to leap from one dazzling accomplishment to the next, yet never failing to prioritize the needs of the patients who need them the most.

Aravind through its hospitals, community centers, vision enters and outreach camps screened 2.54 million patients in the year ending March 2010 and performed 302,180 surgical and laser procedures of which 53% were free or subsidized.

With the support of wellwishers and donors through Global Giving, Aravind continues to provide free speciality care to the underserverd patients which include children suffering from eye cancers, Glaucoma patients and Diabetic retinopathy patients. So far this this year 10 ring of hope patients suffering from retinoblastoma were treated comletely free of charge. Attached are a few photos of these children. The link below provides a summary of the activites undertaken by Friends of aravind to support Aravind Eye Care Systems mission of eradicating needless blindness.

Links:

• Journey towards Light - Friends of Aravind's update

With the help of Global giving and the genorisity of the donors we received $12,000 this year. these funds have been directed to the Ring of Hope Fund which is used mainly to treat patients suffering from life threatening eye cancers and tumors. These donations are either used for subsidized or free treatment of the under privileged people who are unable to pay. Every year Aravind treats approximately 100 new patients &150 review patients who otherwise would have been unable to access crucial medical care. These cancer patients need at least 6 chemotherapy cycles after the surgery. Hence the donations received from global giving helped us treat about 25 such patients including new and review cases.

You can also click on the link below to read the 2007 - 2008 Annual report for Aravind eye care system (AECS). The performance section of the report shows the statistics of the Surgeries performed by AECS for the Fiscal Year 2007 -2008.

Links:

• 2007 - 2008 Annual report for Aravind eye care system (AECS)

The $9,000 received in donations from GlobalGiving has been directed to the Ring of Hope Fund which is used mainly to treat patients suffering from life threatening eye cancers and tumors. (Please see the link below for more information and photos) These donations are either used for subsidized or free treatment of the under privileged people who are unable to pay. Since 2005 Aravind has helped serve 96 such patients who otherwise would have been unable to access crucial medical care. Approx. 10% of these patients were treated with the donations received from GlobalGiving.

You can also click below to read the 2006 - 2007 Annual report for Aravind eye care system (AECS). The performance section of the report shows the statistics of the Surgeries performed by AECS for the Fiscal Year 2006 -2007.

Links:

• Ring of Hope Fund
• 2006 - 2007 Annual report for Aravind eye care system (AECS)

Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy, founder and chairman of Aravind Eye Care System, passed away due to lung failure on July 7th at the age of 88. Dr. V, as he was affectionately addressed, had been unwell for months and succumbed to his illness on Friday afternoon.

Dr. Venkataswamy overcame great adversity to become a renowned ophthalmologist and ended up revolutionizing the field of eye care. He discovered techniques that lowered the cost of each operation to almost $10, allowing the Aravind Hospitals to treat up to 70% of the patients for little or no money.

Besides being an illustrious surgeon, Dr. Venkataswamy touched the lives of those around him with his compassion and humility. He is reported as being “a leader to the soul” and “a global citizen”.

Dr. Venkataswamy’s body was cremated on Saturday afternoon in Madurai, India, where he first founded the Aravind system. Aravind Eye Hospitals will continue be led by Dr. Nam and Dr. Natchiar, who stepped into the leadership role several years ago. Dr. Venkataswamy leaves behind two brothers, a sister, nephews, nieces and many members of the extended Aravind family.

For more information about Dr. Venkataswamy and the Aravind system, follow the links below.

Links:

• The Aravind system.
• On Dr. Venkataswamy's journey.
• Profile of Dr. Venkataswamy.