India eye hospitals inspired by McDonald's

A group of hospitals in India is now regularly performing over 500,000 eye operations each year. This has been achieved by using a McDonald's business strategy.

A visit to McDonald's Hamburger University in Chicago inspired Doctor Govindappa Venkataswamy. He believed that hospitals would benefit from the McDonald's approach. In 1976, he established the first Aravind Eye Hospital. Since then, the hospital has opened centres all over India.

In total, around 60 million people in India are either blind or suffer from diseases which damage their eyesight, such as cataracts. This common cause of blindness is curable, as Aravind Eye Hospital operations director Thulasiraj Ravilla explains.

Thulasiraj Ravilla: "And the bulk of this blindness is not necessary because lots of it is due to cataract, which can be easily set right through a simple surgery."

The long waiting lists caused by the pandemic have forced the hospitals to extend their operating theatre hours. Ravilla says that these longer hours allow more patients to be seen.

Thulasiraj Ravilla: "So, typically we start, the theatre starts at 7am. Maybe the first case may come out at 7.15 or 7.30. So that continues, that has not changed. But then in the past, we would be done by lunchtime. You know, and after that they, they would prep the theatre for the next day. But now it's not uncommon for the surgery to go on till four o'clock, or three o'clock, four o'clock, like that."

The speed and high number of operations might raise questions over quality. However, fewer than two out of every 10,000 patients experience any infection after surgery. This is less than half the level common in the UK and US.

In fact, patients welcome the speedy approach. They aren't concerned by the McDonald's method.

Venkatachalam Rajangam: "I thought the operation would be for an hour but within 15 minutes everything was over. But it didn't feel rushed. The procedure was done properly."

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