Father donates dead son's eyes

DHENKANAL: In what is reported to be the first case of eye donation in the district, a father donated his 30-year-old son's eyes right after the latter's death. In another first, the eye procurement procedure was demonstrated to the media in order to spread the message about the importance of eye donation.
The operation was carried out on the deceased with the support of Kalinga Eye Hospital and the district blood bank office on the premises of the Dhenkanal headquarters hospital on Tuesday.The organizer team removed the cornea of the eyes without disfiguring the donor's face.
The deceased, whom the surgery was performed on, was Manoranjan Mallick, who succumbed to his injuries 33 days after an accident. The young man was critically injured in an accident that occurred on December 11 between Chandikhol and Duburi while he was riding a bike. He had suffered a severe head injury and was undergoing surgical treatment in Cuttack. As there was no improvement in his condition, his family members brought him to the Dhenkanal headquarters hospital five days ago. He continued to be critical even after being admitted here and died at noon on Tuesday.
Minutes after Manoranjan's death, his father, Rajendra Mallick, donated his eyes to the Kalinga Eye Hospital management at the district headquarters hospital. Rajendra said he volunteered for the donation so that someone who can't see is blessed with vision and can see the world through his son's eyes.
"I am proud that my son's eyes can bring back the sight of another person," said Rajendra, who is a health staff at the district headquarters hospital pathology unit.
Eye specialist Dr Subash Chandra Nanda said, "An eye can be procured within six hours of death and can be reused within three days. We have retrieved his cornea and sent it to L V Prasad Eye Hospital at Bhubaneswar as there are no corneal transmission facilities here. We have also sent his blood sample to test for infectious disease like AIDS, Hepatitis B and C, rabies and others." Blood bank officer Dr Balabhadra Ram confirmed though the left side of Manoranjan's head was injured, his eyesight was not affected.