Cataract surgery at Aravind Eye Hospitals: 1988–2008

In the 1980s, cataract was the major cause of blindness in India and was responsible for 80% of all blindness.1,2 This prompted the Indian government to launch a national cataract control programme, which succeeded in lowering the prevalence of blindness from 1.49% to 1.1%.2,3 In addition, by 2000, this programme had reduced the proportion of people blind due to cataract from 80% to 62%.4 Aravind Eye Hospitals contributed to a third of all cataract operations in the state of Tamil Nadu during the last two decades and played a major part in lowering the rate of blindness in that state. By 2000, the prevalence level of blindness was just 0.78%, compared to the national level of 1.11%.3 The first Aravind Eye Hospital was founded in 1976 and contained just 11 beds. There are now five Aravind Eye Hospitals, located up to 500 km apart, which form part of Aravind Eye Care System (AECS). Over the last two decades, the organisation has increased six-fold the number of cataract operations it performs annually: from a total of 29,928 in 1988 to 180,991 operations in 2007, performed at the five centres. During the last two decades, over 70% of the cataract operations on poor patients have been performed free of charge or at a heavily subsidised rate; the other 30% have been conducted in the separate paying section, on patients who could afford the regular fee.