On Saturday, i visited the Lions International Eye Bank (Off JC Road) and spoke regarding the upcoming activity of setting up an 'Eye Pledge Counter' in my company premises. Post this talk, they took me to the Lab and showed me the 'Gods greatest gift' to humans....the eyes!!!!
Yes, these were the eyes that were gave vision to a person and now, ready to show this world to a blind person! Amazing right...yeah...i saw around 5 eyes kept in the refridgerator and soaked in some preservative, wating to get their new life!
They had removed the whole eye (including the White portion called Sclera) and it was kind of a thrill to see the eyes...just the eyes and the cornea. To remove the cornea (this part is the only needed for eye transplantion...to give sight to a corneally-blind person), they have an equipment that does 'Button cutting'! This name can be mapped to the button shaped cornea in the eye, the part that gives vision and shows the world to us...
Apart from this, i got some highly pathetic number...the number of corneas collected right from 1992 to 31st Dec 2005....and guess this number for a span of 13 years....its just 11872!
This is dismally low and a very pathetic figure, considering the number of deaths in Bangalore.
Also, i got to see the number of corneas collected during the month of Jan 2006...for all 31days, they had a collection of 102 only!!!! Bangalore's average death rate is 3500-4000 persons, that translates to around 8000 corneas...and out of that, only 102 eyes donated?? Too disappointing...
We need to act upon this and improve this donation numbers so that more and more can get vision and see this world. Please spread the message of eye donation and help blind to get sight.
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