Ryan Pyle Blog: Ba Ling Bridge

Hello.

I recently had the opportunity to visit a region of China that has often been overlooked during China's sprint towards modernity, and that region is the province of Guizhou. Guizhou is landlocked and mountainous, meaning it has missed out on China's industrial expansion, export manufacturing and farming innovations. The province is one of China's poorest and has been considered a lost hinterland for centuries. With that being said, the central government is now sprinkling money throughout many of China's rural backwaters in an effort to increase transportation links and re-connect this massive country; as well as help out areas of depressed growth. The Ba Ling River Bridge is one of the most visually telling examples of Beijing's efforts to "bridge the gap" between China's wealthier and poorer regions. The bridge is set to connect the capital city of Guizhou province, Guiyang, with the capital of Yunnan province, Kunming; one of the most mountainous and transport defunct regions of China as deep river gorges and mountain ranges are scattered along the route. I recently visited the bridge and was granted unprecedented access, but for only about an hour as the construction boss was on a long lunch. I even had time to climb the 40+ story suspension tower, which was a treat in high wind. Please follow the link below to view the work:

LINK: Click Here for Gallery

Summary:
The Ba Ling River Bridge, due to be completed in early 2010, is one of China's longest suspension bridges. Measuring 1.4 miles (2.25km) the project is a marvel of Chinese engineering that looks wholly out of place among rural Guizhou provinces farms and rice fields. The Ba Ling River Bridge, soaring a quarter of a mile (400m) above the Ba Ling River, is an example of large-scale infrastructure projects that are being built throughout China in an effort to modernize China's vast western hinterland.

--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________

Ryan Pyle Blog: Aravind Hospitals in India

Hello,

In January 2008 I made contact, through a close friend, at the Aravind Hospital in Maduri, Tamil Nadu in southern India. I think it important to stop here and say that I had never been interested in working in India until this point, because I felt like it was so well covered and so well traveled that I might not have much more to offer on the subject. But I was wrong, and it took the Aravind hospitals to inspire me to think differently.

Aravind hospitals originated in 1976 with the mission of "eliminating needless blindness", what a mission statement!

The Aravind hospital in Maduri is the largest eye care center in the world. Located amongst the rural Indians who need eye care services most, Aravind is committed to fighting the barriers of distance, poverty and ignorance to provide compassionate eye care to some of the world's poorest people. In a banner 12 month people over 2.3 million out patients were treated and some 270,444 surgeries were performed.

The hospital itself is a massive operation of eye care, in the few days I spent there the hospitals were teaming, the crowds were well managed and the care people recieved was incredible. Perhaps even more incredible is the fact that Aravind runs two hospitals in Madui, one pay hospital and one free hospital; and they are side by side. Patients can essentially choose which hospital they would like to visit and pay accordingly, the care received is exactly the same. It's a far cry from the Chinese health care system where the moment you enter the hospital a nurse asks you if you would like to the "expensive" doctor or the "cheap" doctor.

So Aravind does about two thirds of its surgeries for free and one third for a fee, and on this business model they are profitable as well as serving the public, and creating one of the most efficient eye surgeon training programs which has a waiting list from doctors around the world.

Case studies by Havard Business school have made Aravind a low cost, high volume, high quality model for health care around the world. Above is a slide show of my work from my few days in wonderful Maduri. I'm planning on returning to India often in the coming years as I am fascinated by the differences in growth, development and religion between India and China.

LINKS:
Aravind Hospital

If you google Aravind Hospital you'll get a bunch of hits you can search through.

--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________