Six days before he breathed last. He was one of the best and oldest students of my class. His family called me. They wanted to get his eyes donated as per his last wish. I called the national eye bank help line number 1919. Telephone service provider kept telling me that I am trying a wrong number. I dialled the eye hospital directly as I knew where exactly the eye bank is. There team came and got the job done. A large number of people gathered outside his house to know how the eye donation is done. I had to herd the crowd towards a side to avoid distraction to the eye surgery team. I tried to explain the facts about eye donation to the anxious neighbors. I always wondered that in spite of so much promotion by stars like Aishwarya Rai and Amitabh Bachchan, the knowledge about eye donation is quite limited. Our country needs about 2.5 lakh eyes and only about 25000 donations are received in a year. Many people still feel that eye donation can lead to deformity of face, which is a complete myth. Only a very thin layer of cornea is lifted from the eye.
Sometimes corneas can even be sliced vertically to give the gift of vision to multiple people from one eye itself. Two eyes can often lead to vision for four people for their life. Eyes of very old people, people with diabetes etc, can also be donated successfully. Even if the person has never pledged his eyes, his family members still have the legal right to donate eyes after his death. Eyes can be donated up to six hours of death. Most hospitals in our country do not promote eye donation as a part of their service. Even if a person dies at hospital, you might have to shift the person to your home before his or her cornea can be collected. This reality I have faced myself. India has a crude death rate of 8 per 1000, which means about 80 lakh people die every year. Out which getting just 25000 eyes means only about 3 eyes every 1 lakh people we are able to get as donation. To fulfill the need we need to make it 3 eyes per thousand people. This is possible if we can make some simple changes to our mindset. All doctors in the hospitals can be trained to encourage people to donate eyes. All surgery forms can take permissions for eye donations also. All funeral places can have eye collection team ready. Telecom companies can be forced to treat eye donation number as an essential services number.
So friends! Please tell your family today, that you want to see this world for ever, even after your physical absence. If you happen to go for a condolence of any near or dear ones, please do counsel them for eye donation, if the time frame allows. Believe me, it always works and even the family of deceased will ultimately appreciate it. Please do save the number of a nearest eye bank around you in your mobile address book.
Dr. Sunil Ji Garg
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