Roshni Zindagi Mein: Help spread awareness about the benefits of eye donation

Blindness continues to be one of the major public health problems in our country. Cataract and corneal diseases are major causes of blindness in 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.

Under the Roshni Zindagi Mein Campaign, we conduct eye donation awareness campaign in school and colleges across the state. We are trying to spread awareness about the virtue of donating eyes via public programs and special events like festivals, jatras, yatras, kumbh mela, etc across Maharashtra. Also, we are sensitizing people in hospitals and connecting them with the eye banks of respective district.

The rationale behind this campaign is to bring efficiency and transparency in eye donation and distribution system. Once people realize the importance of eye donation, it will become a mass movement. This will help India tackle the problem of corneal blindness. Due to local availability of round-the-clock eye donation facility, number of eye donation will increase. By connecting the hospital and clinics to the eye banks of respective district, eye bank team will get easily connected with the family of deceased and even enucleation process will be done in the hospital.