Aravind’s 82nd Vision Centre was inaugurated at Mecheri by Ln.Mr.K.Ramasamy, Past President, Lions Club of Mecheri on December 25. The centre is managed by Aravind-Salem.Dr. B. Manohar Babu, Chief Medical Officer, Aravind-Salem; Mr.Raghupathy, Ex-Counsellor and president of Mecheri Silk Sarees Manufacturing association, Mecheri; Mr.Baskar, Retd., Electrical Engineer Powergrid Corp., Mr.Ranjith, Professor NSS & Social Welfare, Kavery Engineering College, Mecheri and Mr.Murugesan, Proprietor, M.M Textiles & Pattumaligai, Mecheri, Salem were present at the event.

Aravind 83rd Vision Centre was inaugurated at Vandavasion January 20, 2021 byLn. B. Munirathinam, Founder & President, Sri Akilandeswari Women’s College, Vandavasi and Mr P. Nallasamy, Founder, Gowtham Finance, Cheyyar in the presence of Dr. R. Venkatesh, Chief Medical Officer Aravind Eye Hospital. Members of Lions and Rotary Clubs, Chamber of Commerce, and prominent people in the community were present.The centre saw a total of 108 patients on the inaugural day.

Aravind-Pondicherry, January 9

“You can’t solve a problem on the same level that it was created. You have to rise above it to the next level.” – Albert Einstein

Aravind-Pondicherry hosted the first official Hackathon of AECS.

Hackathon is a sprint-like event where different people come together to work on a problem statement. They work continuously for 24-48 hours and come up with a working solution for the same. The Hackathon 2020 was very successful and the team was able to come up with innovative ideas to combat Covid-19 related problems, some of which were – iOpener, safe slit lamp shield, 90D holder, and antifog band.

For this year’s event, Aravind-Pondicherry team was joined by doctors from Coimbatore, Tirunelveli, and a team from Aurolab. 14 problem statements were given and 14 teams worked diligently on them with help from the instrument department, MLOPs and Aurolab. Out of these, a few teams came up with prototypes, by pushing beyond their limits, thinking out of the box.

Aravind-Chennai, January 1

The workshop was organised with the objective of setting goals for 2021 and was attended by 33 employees from different cadres. The workshop began with Dr. S. Aravind, Chief Medical Officer setting the context. Dr. Haripriya reflected on the performance of Aravind-Chennai in 2020 in different domains – Service delivery, Quality & patient care, HR & Academics and Research & Publications. Participants were divided into five teams – OPD & cataract, Specialty, Academic & HR, Research & Publications, and Quality & Patientcare followed with a brainstorming session to set goals with action plan for 2021.

Shroff Charity Eye Hospital, Delhi (SCEH) and Eicher Motors India has joined hands to initiate a project to screen truck drivers for eye problems. Aravind Eye Hospital, Salem is identified to be one of the partners for this project in the south zone. The project will commence from January 2021 and with the help of the mobile van sponsored by Eicher, eye camps will be conducted in transport hubs, petrol stations, service stations of Eicher, RTO offices, etc. The van is designed with all the necessary eye care equipment inside.

Posters and papers by Aravind staff from various centres were selected for publishing on the website of Vision 2020.VISION 2020 INDIA’s 16th annual conference had to be cancelled due to COVID -19. The Board decided to give an opportunity to authors who submitted their presentations to publish their posters on the conference website.

• A.Arumugaselvei (Poster): Reducing patient waiting time in a high volume tertiary eye care setup
• Gomathi (Poster) : Changing trends of fundus fluorescein angiography (FFA) performed in the era of optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) in the management of neovascular AMD
• Meena, Devarani (Paper) – Impact of fitting of a custom fit ocular prosthesis on the quality of life of patients
• Ranitha Gunaselvi (Poster) – Evaluation accuracy of Glaucoma screening by trained vision technicians at vision centres in rural southern India
• Esakiammal (Poster) – Retinopathy of prematurity telescreening and management at urban and rural Neonatal Intensive care units: outcomes and impact assessment
• A.Stella Baby (Paper) – Screening first degree relatives with primary glaucoma in a tertiary eye care hospital
• Ayirathammal (Paper) – Common optometric & dispensing errors in tertiary eye care hospital
• Rajakumari, Prema Subramaniam (Paper) –   Impact of grief counselling by non-physicians for acceptance of treatment in newly diagnosed cases of Retinoblastoma.
• Ramyadevi, Prema Subramaniam (Paper): Gender Disparity and Socio Economic status of babies undergoing Retinopathy of Prematurity Telescreening in Rural South India

Aravind-Coimbatore organised two webinars:

• Webinar on Hospital Infection Control and OT Protocolswas held on December 17. Over 300 people attended.
• Webinar on Refraction for Post Graduates was conducted on December 10.