In 1976 Dr. G. Venkataswamy, known as Dr. V, retired at 58 and founded Aravind Eye Hospitals, starting with an eleven-bed hospital. In Aravind’s own account, “Dr. V drew inspiration from McDonalds and designed an assembly-line system.”
The same account reports: “Four of our doctors assisted by twelve nurses could do about one hundred cataract operations in one day.” Aravind says it has performed more than 11.6 million surgeries.