90 city doctors pledge eyes

Siddhartha D. Kashyap / TNN / Apr 27, 2007, 03:58 IST

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Doctors in Pune have pledged their eyes to boost a drive amid Cornea Crunch

PUNE: Although there is a need for an estimated two lakh corneas annually to restore vision of the corneal blind, barely 24,000 corneas are collected through eye donation in the country.
In an exemplary initiative to address this shortfall, 90 doctors from Pune have now pledged their eyes after death.
The doctors have also decided to strengthen the eye donation campaign in Pune by encouraging patients to pledge their eyes and by guiding them.
Dr Kumar Ganpatrao Mandhare, president of the Yerwada doctors’ association (a satellite body of the parent Indian Medical Association), told TOI that this initiative is also aimed at rebuilding the declining trust between the medical fraternity and patients.

“Why not lead from the front,” Mandhare asked.
“When we proposed the idea at a meeting of the association on Saturday, we expected only a few doctors to respond. The response was, however, overwhelming.”
According to the Eye Bank Association of India (EBAI), around 40 lakh people suffer from blindness in the country due to some defect in the cornea. Sixty per cent of such cases are found in children aged below 12 years.

“The country needs around two lakh corneas every year, but we manage to collect only about 24,000-25,000,” Dr Sangeeta Wagh, former chairperson of the EBAI (West Zone), said.
To add to the problem, as many as 25-30% of the eyes donated are not of good quality and, therefore, unfit for transplants.
They are then used for research and training or for therapeutic applications.
As a part of their campaign, participating members of the Yerwada doctors’ association will display posters at their clinics urging patients to donate eyes.
The association’s past president, Rajesh Anand, and vice-president Dr S.H. Singh said all its members would keep eye donation forms and other related information ready at their clinics. Dr Aditya Kelkar from the National Institute of Ophthalmology, hailed the doctors for the initiative.

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