Eye Donation - Details

Do you know?
Corneal blindness is one of the most common and also most easily treated causes of blindness. The treatment, however, depends on the availability of healthy corneas, donated by people upon their death. Corneal Blindness affects nearly 2 million Indians and a significant portion of them is young. Patients with corneal blindness can be visually rehabilitated only through transplanting their own damaged or disease affected corneas with healthy corneal tissues obtained from voluntary donors.

What you can do?
You can donate your eyes. People who wish to donate their corneas (one person can donate two corneas, one from each eye, to effectively enable two blind persons to see).

What to do to donate?
You have to pledge your eyes.

How to pledge?
You can pledge your eyes by filling out a pledge card that you should carry always.

You can ring to Ramayamma International Eye Bank and mention your address so that they will send the form to you. You have to just fill it and send them back either thru post or in person. Then they will give you the Donor Card. You also can fill the form online.

To whom we have to send the forms?
Ramayamma International Eye Bank, LV Prasad Eye Institute, LV Prasad Marg, Banjara Hills, Hyd - 34.

Contact 24 hours:
Phone : 1919 (Toll Free); 2354 8266 (Direct)

2354 8267 / 2360 8262

Fax: 2354 8271

Mobile: 98495-45822

Website: lvpei.org

Email: rieb@lvpei.org

Let us know more about the following topics
What is Eye Donation?

Who can donate?

Who cannot donate?

What is the process?

What is an Eye Bank?

Apart from being a donor what we can do for this cause?

Why is there a need for a campaign for this cause?

How to campaign?

What does the Eyebank do with the procured corneas?

What is Eye Donation?
Patients with corneal blindness can be visually rehabilitated only through transplanting their own damaged or disease affected corneas with healthy corneal tissues obtained from voluntary donors.

Pledging the cornea, after one's death, to be transplanted to patients is the eye donation. The Whole Eye is not used for the transplant. Only the thin transparent layer in front of the iris called the cornea is used for the transplant. The removal of corneas or whole eyes does not disfigure the face.

Cornea is the place where we touch the eye. It is not black or blue or brown in colour as we suppose. It is like the glass on the watch which reflects the colour of the dial.

If the cornea works well, one can donate the eyes. Even if one cannot see, one can still donate the eye.

Medical Details
Under any climatic conditions, eyes retain life upto 6 hours after the death. So they should be stored in the ice box.

In general, it is good to transplant the cornea within 24 hours of taking it out from the deadbody. There are incidents that they are stored upto 3 days also.

Uniqueness of Eye Transplantation
Cornea of an old man can be given to a child and viceversa. Similarly cornea of right eye be transplanted in left eye and the cornea of a woman can be transplanted to men.

Blood group need not match. Ditto with age, gender and position (left or right)

Who can donate?
People of any age, race and country, spectacle wearers, even people suffering from Diabetes and Hypertension can donate their eyes. All religious faiths support this vital sight restoration programme.

The removal of corneas or whole eyes does not disfigure the face.

You can give the gift of sight by pledging your eyes at the Eye Bank, however the consent of the next of kin is essential for making an eye donation. If the heirs are interested, membership is not required to donate the eyes.

Who cannot donate?
Corneas of persons suffering from AIDS, Jaundice (Hepatitis A to G), Rabies, Syphilis, Tetanus, Septicemia,Glacoma and viral diseases are considered unfit for donation.

Leprosy: If one is a leper and have some blemishes at the time of the death. Even though the leprosy is cured, such persons are not eligible.

Also if the death is caused due to drowning.

Though medically useful, due to legal reasons, we cannot take the cornea in time.

Two reasons:

a) The exact time of death is not known.
b) A postmortem is required in drowning cases

Death caused due to burns

Dog/Scorpion/Snake bites. But the cornea can be used as a teaching aid.

What is the process?
Once a person who pledged his eyes dies, the next kith, kin or the family members will inform to the nearest hospital. The eye bank team will go to the donor's residence (after death) or the hospital and perform the corneal excision. The tissue procurement is performed within 20 minutes. Therefore family members of the deceased can proceed with funeral arrangements as planned. There will not be any delay.

Grades of Cornea:
Procured corneas are screened for the HIV antibody, HBS antigen and VRDL (Syphilis). Then they are evaluated for various parameters and based on these results, they are graded. ‘Excellent’ to ‘good’ grade cornea are used for corneal transplants, while lower grades are used for therapeutic transplants, which are performed to stem the spread of infection on the surface of the eye.

The corneas are preserved in MK medium and are distributed among LVPEI and hospitals in Hyderabad and Secunderabad, to meet their surgical, therapeutic and research needs.Corneas that are rejected, that are not utilized for surgery, for technical reasons are used for research and training.

The cornea can be used in 4 different ways based on its health.

The cornea which is working very well is used for the transplantation.

Cornea of second grade is transplanted to the persons who are ailing with corneal ulcers. Once the ulcer gets cured, well working cornea will be transplanted by replacing the second grade cornea.

Cornea of third grade is used for experiments in medical colleges.

Cornea of fourth grade is used as teaching aid in the classroom.

What is an Eye Bank?
An Eye Bank is a not-for-profit organization that works towards collection, preservation and distribution of human eyes to patients advised to undertake corneal transplantation.

It is illegal to buy or sell human eyes, organs or tissues. Any cost involved with corneal retrieval is borne by the Eye Bank. Also Donor-recipient information is kept confidential.

What is our responsibility?
At the time of death, in the midst of grief and confusion even the best of intentions may not lead to an actual eye donation. Pledged corneas cannot be retrieved without the consent of the family.

The families of those who have not pledged their eyes can also decide, at the time of death, to pledge the eyes of the deceased on his or her behalf. Pledging of eyes is not important, because even in the case of a pledge, the consent of the family member (next-of-kin) is essential, without which an eye cannot be removed. Therefore it is important that we share our wish to donate the eyes with the family members.

Apart from being a donor what we can do for this cause?
Apart from pledging your own eyes, you can help the eye bank at LVPEI (and eye banks around the world) by motivating your family and close friends to do the same, and by helping such people carry through their pledge at the time of death. You also can campaign for the cause.

Why is there a need for a campaign for this cause?

Huge gap between demand and supply
Despite increased public awareness about eye donation over the years, so acute is the shortage of donor corneas that there is a six-month waiting period for transplant patients at hospitals across the country.

Only in hyderabad 8000 eyes are required in a year. 4000 donors are needed but there are only 60 donations (120 persons only are benifitted out of 8000 blind people). 1200 members are dying in a year (from all religions). The demand is far higher than the supply.

There is a waiting list of close to 400 patients who are in need of a healthy corneal tissue in LV Prasad Eye Institute alone.

Lack of awareness
A magazine editor in nellore district was full of surprise after helping Sri Sukumar Reddy in taking the cornea from the dead body. Until then he used to think that one has to break open the skull in order to take the cornea. He felt very embarrassed for his opinion and then he realised the need to explain it to the common people. So he published the entire story in the next issue of his magazine explaining the process and discussed the need of eye donation.

How to campaign?
The RIEB conducts a two-week eye donation awareness programme in August-September every year. The week of Aug 24 to Sep 8, is declared as Eye Donation Week. During this period, special events are held at the LV Prasad Eye Institute and in several public locations around the city of Hyderabad, aimed at increasing awareness of eye donation and corneal blindness.

The support of national and local celebrities plays a key role. Pledge cards are distributed and collected, with several public personalities signing pledges at highly publicized events.

The eye bank also distributes posters for public display, holds seminars and lectures for different groups, and distributes public awareness literature in several Indian languages as well as in English.

What does the Eyebank do with the procured corneas?
Take the example of RIEB: The donor corneas locally procured by the RIEB are not only utilised by surgeons within the LV Prasad Eye Institute, but are also made available to numerous corneal surgeons in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad.

In 2003, 1352 corneas were collected by RIEB, of which 53 were distributed to other hospitals.

This year RIEB has been distributing 10-15 optical grade corneas every month to various hospitals in Hyderabad and Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh.

RIEB supplies cornea to the following hospitals

• Dr. Ranga Reddy Lions Hospital

• Maxi Vision Laser Center Pvt. Ltd.

• Drishti Eye Center

• Apollo Hospitals

• Yashoda Hospitals, Somajiguda

• Sadhu Ram Eye Hospital

• Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital