Help provide eye donation and transplantation opportunities to the needy

Blindness continues to be one of the major public health problems in our country. Cataract and corneal diseases are major causes of blindness in countries with less-developed economies. According to the WHO, corneal diseases are among the major causes of vision loss and blindness in the world today, after cataract and glaucoma. In India, it is estimated that there are approximately 6.8 million people who have vision less than 6/60 in at least one eye due to corneal diseases; of these, about a million have bilateral involvement. It is expected that the number of individuals with unilateral corneal blindness in India will increase to 10.6 million by 2020.

We are creating awareness amongst the masses and trying to make eye donation a family tradition. For this, we target youth which will help to make three generations aware about eye donation. Along with awareness, we are also establishing a series of eye banks and transplantation centers where no eye donation or transplantation facility is presently available. These eye banks will provide round-the-clock eye donation facility which will ensure increase in the number of eye donations. To ease the eye donation process, we are connecting specialty and super specialty hospitals with our eye bank network so that we can reach the deceased family for counseling and complete the eye donation procedure in the hospital only. We are conducting regular eye checkup and screening camps to identify corneal blinds so that their names can be enrolled in the recipient waiting list. All these efforts are undertaken to ensure efficiency and transparency in eye donation and distribution system.

Due to local availibility of round-the-clock eye donation facility, number of eye donation will increase. Because of less distance between eye bank and place of eye donation, this would become a common practice. Corneal blinds can easily register their name in the waiting list of eye bank or transplantation centre as it is locally available. We are also going to collabrate with hospitals for cornea retrival program which will help us to get in touch with the familes of deseased people in the hospital and even enucleation process can be done in the hospital