Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also love of humanity.
Hippocrates, Greek Physician and Philosopher (460-377 BC)
27, 28 and 29th September 2024 were three important days in the life of senior ophthalmologist Dr. K.V. Ravishankar for a couple of reasons – he was part of centenary celebration of his Alma Matter, Mysore Medical College and on this joyous occasion he was honoured by his batch mates for the high quality eye-care services that he has been rendering to the community, both for the paying and non-paying patients, in India and outside India, with the same enthusiasm and rigour for nearly three decades! Throughout these three decades of his professional journey Dr. Ravishankar has been balancing rigour and changing technologies on the one hand with compassion and commerce on the other, while maintaining the enthusiasm to serve the community.
Kowshik Venkatasubbaiah Ravishankar (b.1963) had most of his schooling in Hassan before joining Mysore Medical College. After completing graduation in medicine and surgery, he worked at Minto Eye Hospital and Prabha Eye Clinic at Bangalore to understand the field of ophthalmology before joining Sankara Netralaya, Chennai in 1987 to do his post-graduate programme. Having completed post-graduation, Dr. Ravishankar decided to specialise in Vitreo Retinal surgery under the guidance of legendary Dr. S.S. Badrinath, founder of Sankara Netralaya. On completion of his Fellowship programme Dr.Ravishankar continued his professional journey as Retina Consultant at Sankara Netralaya for four more years.
After four years of practice at Sankara Netralaya, Dr. Ravishankar decided to do a fellowship again in Vitreo Retina under the guidance of another legend Dr. Relja Ẑivojnović who was then working at University of Antwerp, Belgium. Dr. Relja Ẑivojnović (b.1931), born to Physician father and Ophthalmologist mother practising in Austria, evolved himself to become an internationally acclaimed Vitreo Retinal surgeon in Europe. Having got trained by two legendary Vitreo Retinal surgeons, Dr. Ravishankar established Usha Kiran Eye Hospital on the first of January 1995 at Mysore together with his life partner Dr. Uma who was also trained at Sankara Netralaya.
Within a short period of time after establishing the eye hospital Dr. Ravishankar realised that many patients who were advised surgery after consultation did not turn up, though the cost of surgery was reasonable. Dr. Ravishankar realised the fact that walk-in patients alone could not scale up the number of surgeries. Having worked in Sankara Netralaya, he was exposed to charity work, both in-house as well as outreach activities in the nearby villages. Hence, within a short period of establishing the hospital, he decided to take up community work. Usha Kiran Charitable Trust was thus born on the first of January of 1998.
However, Dr. Ravishankar knew well that charity is double-edged sword; while charity based community ophthalmology (CO) would get more patients into the hospital, creating the perception of Charity Hospital shall run the risk of being shunned by the well-paying patients. In the same year of establishing the trust, on the invitation of one his patients Dr. Ravishankar joined Rotary Club of Mysore West. No sooner Dr. Ravishankar joined Rotary, he started initiating community work as he could raise some funds by bringing to the attention of members of his club the various eye-related issues in the community that could be resolved with timely interventions, else may lead to unnecessary blindness. Dr. Ravishankar also got in touch with several national and international Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) involved in supporting eye surgeries. Over the next five years, this increased the foot-falls into the hospitals.
However, as government was providing subsidy for adult cataract surgeries under CO to established trusts, the space for doing service in this area got crowded. Hence, Dr. Ravishankar started looking for alternate segments for delivering service. As compared to adult cataract surgeries, in paediatric surgeries there were not many players; only one in six hundred of the children screened would need surgery, compared to eight to ten percent in adult screening. Also paediatric surgery was costlier, since general anaesthesia and better infrastructure were required. In Sri Vivekananda Sevashrama (SVS), Mysore chapter of Bangalore based NGO serving the poor, Dr. Ravishankar found an excellent partner to reach out to school children in Mysore and the nearby districts of Mandya and Chamarajnagar. Trained volunteers of SVS with the support of optometrists from Usha Kiran covered in a day screening 600-1000 school children. After prescribing glasses for refraction errors to around five percent of the children less than two percent were referred to the hospital for examination of causes ranging from lazy eye, trauma, congenital / development cataract or glaucoma, squint, droopy eye lids or any other abnormalities.
Around the time Dr. Gabriel Minder (1936-2019), a Rotarian from Geneva visited Bangalore during 2003 to support Avoidable Blindness (AB) projects, Dr. Ravishankar had read an article written by Dr. Gabriel in Rotary News magazine and got in touch with him by email seeking support for paediatric eye surgeries. What started as a small project initially with the support of Rotarians and well-wishers, with the support of Dr. Gabriel Minder developed into a major Matching Grant project of the Rotary Foundation (TRF) worth US$ 42,000 in 2008 and helped to support over two hundred children surgeries for various eye-related issues totally free of cost for the parents.
It was in 2009, during the implementation of Children Surgeries project that I had first met Dr. Ravishankar in person though we were in touch with each other through emails. I was overwhelmed with his accomplishments in the area of CO. This motivated me to put together a Global Grant project supported by a few Rotary clubs in Portugal, spearheaded by a passionate Rotarian Jorge Amaral, a few clubs of my Rotary district and TRF to support 100 paediatric surgeries, 600 cataract surgeries and 1,200 spectacles for school children.
Apart from doing service to the community in and around Mysore, Dr. Ravishankar made it a point to volunteer his professional services to support communities in developing countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Honduras and many African nations – the Gambia, Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria, to name a few, whenever he found some time. I had the opportunity to go along with him as a volunteer on a couple of missions and observed that his energy and passion to serve the community were no way less even on the foreign soil. Over the last twenty three years he had visited abroad twenty four times, operating over 2000 adults and 220 children on pro-bono basis. All this was possible because, Dr. Uma Ravishankar managed the hospital single handed when Dr. Ravishankar was away on such voluntary work. She was the strong pillar of support in all the endeavours of Dr. Ravishankar.
It is equally astounding to note that the ophthalmologist couple have done over 17,000 free adult surgeries which include procedures/injections for Diabetic Retinopathy and Glaucoma apart from 12,000 highly subsidised surgeries/procedures/injections over and above 50,000 paid ones since the time of establishment of hospital. During this period, the hospital with the support of SVS had also screened nearly 400,000 school children and provided 15,000 free spectacles, performing 400 totally free paediatric eye surgeries and another 400 subsidised surgeries, apart from 2,500 paid paediatric eye surgeries!
If these numbers are mind boggling, the number of awards and accolades that Dr. Ravishankar had received for his services from various national and international bodies – Rotary clubs, Lions clubs, NGOs, TRF, American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (just to name a few), is no way less. To summarise the services rendered by this Ophthalmologist couple, words of Dr. Mohmed Rehman, Professor of Anaesthesia, Critical Care Medicine and Paediatrics, Johns Hopkins All Children Hospital, Florida, USA capture it very succinctly : In today’s world, where commercial interests often take precedence, it is truly exceptional to see a couple like Dr. K.V. Ravishankar and Dr. Uma Ravishankar, who selflessly devote their time, energy, and financial gains to bring smiles to the faces of children and their parents. Their only compensation is the enduring gratitude of children and the heartfelt prayers of their parents.
Dr. Ravishankar’s says, ‘the most satisfying moment of life was when my teacher, guide and mentor Dr. Badrinath told me how proud he was about his protégé getting Lifetime Achievement Award from Rotary Avoidable Blindness Foundation for the Community work rendered!’
October 31, 2024 | Ravi 89
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