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| Don’t shut your eyelids to eye donation | | | SANJEEV SHARMA
Jammu | Sep 15: Eye donation? Close your eyes and think about it for a moment. One would realize deep inside that it is the most pious work to help those who are not fortunate enough to have a glimpse of different colours of life but can see the world through a donor’s eye.
Donating eyes means let your eyes live after you.
However, slogans like “Jeete Jeete Raktdaan, Jaate Jaate Netradan” and many more such slogans have failed to evoke positive response in the winter capital.
Despite government attempts to create awareness addressing their myths only a miniscule number of people express their wish to donate their eyes.
In the last ten years only about 400 individuals got themselves registered with the Eye Bank of Department of Ophthalmology, Government Medical College, here
However, as the Eye Bank records suggests, the number of registered donors has picked up encouragingly in the last couple of years may be because of extra efforts put in by the department in creating awareness among the people in and around Jammu during national eye donation fortnight organized under the banner of National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB).
During the recently concluded fortnight (August 25 to September 8), the GMC Eye Bank got fresh registrations from 48 people including 15 women.
“I think people should come forward in large number but generally they are reluctant because of certain myths, ifs and buts in their mind,” said Head of the Department of Ophthalmology, Dr (Mrs) P Sadhotra.
It is not the J&K state only where the turn-up of those willing to donate their eyes is low, but majority of the states in the country have similar trends. “Although there are 166 Eye Banks all over India but unfortunately, except for two or three states where there are latest facilities for Cornea transplantation, the response is not that encouraging from the general public,” disclosed the HoD.
However, as per the latest World Health Organisation (WHO) survey, there are 37 million blind people worldwide of which 11 million are in India alone.
“The Cornea transplantation is simpler than other transplantation and a strong network of 10,000 eye specialists are eager to do it but what hamper the cause of millions of hapless people are legal hassles,” she said.
No Cornea transplant takes place in Jammu and Kashmir after the J&K Legislation passed the Organ Transplantation Act in 1997 thereby making the process more complicated.
“Even as there are legal hassles in transplantation, still we make efforts to create awareness among the general masses about eye donation. In the recently held eye donation fortnight we had been to Katra, Dansal in Udhampur districts besides visiting Blind Schools and Home for the Aged and Infirm Jammu for examination and awareness purposes,” she maintained.
“Our efforts paid off and 48 more people registered themselves with the eye bank recently,” she said.
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