LVPEI launches National Eye Donation fortnight, Aug 25 to Sept 8, and urges people to look at this problem with open hearts and minds
PRAVASISAMWAD.COM
Corneal blindness remains a challenging problem in the country because of insufficient donors.
Out of over 100,000 persons who lose their eyesight every year, only about one-fourth or 25,000 are able to receive corneal transplants to save or restore their eyesight.
For the remaining 75 per cent there are no options, since the prevalence of voluntary eye donations is low on account of social bias, false beliefs and an outdated mindset.
This huge gap between donors and recipients can only be reduced by greater awareness of the existing problem, the acceptance of corneal transplants as a normal and standard procedure, and the willingness of donors to come forward and pledge their eyes for donation.
Doctors at the LV Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) believe a lot more can be done and achieved if people begin to look at the problem with open eyes, as well as with open hearts and minds.
The institute intends to engage with the public with a number of activities, through its network of institutions to raise awareness about the problem during this fortnight.
The doctors’ observations came at a special function to mark the National Eye Donation fortnight from August 25 to September 8.
Of the 10 million cases of blindness in the country, over 2 million are affected by corneal blindness. Sixty per cent are children below the age of 12. A larger volume of donors can bring about a significant change in the situation, the doctors assert.
Doctors at the LV Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) believe a lot more can be done and achieved if people begin to look at the problem with open eyes, as well as with open hearts and minds.
The LVPEI’s Ramayamma International Eye Bank Director Sunita Chaurasia urged people to come forward and pledge their eyes for donation. “Also this fact has to be shared with family members, whose permission is necessary to carry out the donors’ wishes after their demise”
She says the International Eye Bank had crossed a milestone in 2019 with over one lakh corneas in the bank.
Corneas must be removed from the bodies within six to nine hours of a person’s death. People of any age group are eligible to donate their eyes, including diabetics, or those who have hypertension, wear glasses or have undergone cataract surgery.
Since its inception the services of LVPEI have benefitted nearly 23.8 million people, over 50 per cent of them entirely free of cost. In 2018 it inaugurated a ‘Special Needs Vision Clinic’ to provide eye care to children with developmental delays and disabilities.
The LVPEI network include the main centre in Banjara Hills, three tertiary centers in Visakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar and Vijayawada, 20 secondary centers and 185 primary care centers. The secondary and primary care centers provide medical facilities to the remotest rural areas of the country.
Since 2020, the LVPEI Eye Bank Network has been performing over 2,000 corneal transplant surgeries every year. So far over 38,655 corneal transplant surgeries have been done at the institute, perhaps the highest at a single institute anywhere in the world.
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