Was just wondering as to how would it be to live without eyesight for a day? I guess most of us don’t even want to think about that scenario. Would you be happy if somebody locks us in a completely dark room for a long time? I will not. So we can only imagine how it would be to live without eyesight.
Our world consists of things big or small but colourful. We see shapes and we recognise people or anything else because of our eyesight. The colourful things distinguish one from the other therefore they have their own identities.
However not all of us are lucky to have this asset. We will understand and realise only if we somehow are forced to live a life of a blind for few days. Getting sucked into an abysmal darkness, we will understand how precious these are.
Of all charities, eye donation is the noblest because it opens up new vistas of light for the visually impaired. No wonder someone rightly said:
If you want to see Facebook or WhatsApp even after your death
-Donate your eyes
-See when you are alive
-Also see when you are gone.
All we need to do is bequeath our eyes by taking a pledge when we are alive, to donate our eyes after we die. This permission can be given by the closest relative of the deceased too.
The cornea is the most important part of the eye which can become opaque due to infection, injuries, lack of proper post-operative care, malnutrition and also due to congenital or hereditary reasons. A corneal implantation is done through surgery by which opaque cornea is replaced with a clear one obtained from an eye donor. Within six hours of death, a call for eye donation is to be made to the nearest eye-bank of a hospital and this sets in motion the eye bank after which the team reaches the house of the deceased in no time. At the actual site, eyes of the deceased are removed without causing any disfigurement within 10-15 minutes.
There are many tertiary hospitals with whom one can get in touch with and express their will to donate ones eyes. Global ophthalmic community is now poised up to set up widespread across to corneal transplantation through eye donation. Though in India, number of such calls willing to donate eyes has increased. But still, it is very low as compared to the demand. And people unwilling or unaware about donating eyes adds to it. However many health organisations are engaging themselves in the task of creating awareness and counseling about this. And this way some improvement have been seen. But still a lot more is to be done.
Common people must be educated about ‘Eye Donation’ and they must be convinced about leaving their grief and myths. Only if eye donation becomes a tradition, the corneal blindness incidents can be reduced.
Mind you, a person dying of diseases such as rabies, syphilis, aids, hepatitis, etc. cannot donate eyes.
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
