Ophthalmologists on greater awareness to combat blindness

Guwahati, Aug 27 (UNI) Lack of awareness is posing to be the main stumbling block when it comes to fighting blindness through eye donation, with the availability of donated corneas falling in sharp shortage to the demand for it.

Stating this at a press conference here today, medical director of the Sri Sankardeva Netralaya and a renowned ophthalmologist himself Dr H Bhattacharjee said, ''People need to be motivated to come forward for donation if we are to combat blindness.'' The eye hospital also felicitated families of 27 deceased people, who had donated their eyes. The programme was a part of the National Eye Donation Fortnight from August 25 to September 8.

The Sri Sankardeva Netralaya conducts the felicitation programme annually to recognise the noble deed of eye donation of the deceased persons.

Identifying corneal blindness as the major cause of loss of sight, Dr Bhattacharyya said, ''It is prevalent mostly in the economically weaker section and children. Nutrition is directly related to corneal blindness.'' He spelt out low nutrition, injury and infection as the major causes of corneal blindness, adding that such blindness is preventable and curable with greater awareness to a large extent. Dr Kalyan Dutta of the hospital informed that they had conducted transplantation of 350 corneas out of the total 500 it had received since its foundation in 1994.

About 80-85 per cent of the transplantation performed had been successful, with complete fees waiver for the economically poor section, who form a major chunk of the beneficiaries.

The Sri Sankardeva Netralaya Eye Bank was formed in 2000, which is the first accredited eye bank in North East. It is among the five eye banks in the region, the others being at the three government hospitals in Guwahati, Dibrugarh and Silchar and a fourth at Jorhat.

Arunachal Pradesh was in the process of setting up one with the Sri Sankardeva Netralaya providing the technical know-how.

Dr Bhattacharjee, while maintaining that the eye donors were from a cross section of society, said a greater awareness for eye donation was seen in Jain and Gujarati communities, possibly due to their religious sentiments.

Stressing that an increase in the number of donors can help in combating blindness to a big extent, he said the number of donations had increased over the years.

The awareness level has to go up and the media and the government have to play a more pro-active role in it, he added.

UNI