In search of plain sight

For Rajiv Kumar, a 27-year-old worker at a glass factory in Haryana, who had lost his eyesight following an infection a year ago, a visit to a rural medical camp opened doors to an eye hospital in Delhi. His name was put on a wait list for three months before a successful cornea transplant, restoring sight in one eye. Unlike Kumar, infant Yatan Gautam from Sonepat is still awaiting his cornea transplant. The one-year-old was diagnosed with a corneal scar in one eye and persistent infection, which now requires a cornea transplant. The pre-surgery cost, which goes towards testing the cornea for prevalent disorders, matching donor-recipient tissues etc, is about Rs 6,500. The surgery cost itself varies from hospital to hospital depending on the surgeon’s fees, kind of room opted for, etc. New Delhi’s Dr Shroff Charity Eye Hospital subsidises the surgery for the needy, even waives off the surgery cost for the needy.

According to the National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB), an estimated 1.2 lakh people live with corneal blindness— preventable blindness— in India. Then there are people living with poor eyesight.
Such blindness, or partial blindness, can be corrected with corneal transplants, in which a pair of good quality corneas, retrieved from a deceased person, are used to give sight to two blind people. The challenge for doctors is to reach out to rural and remote areas where the majority of people in need are concentrated.

Lack of infrastructure

As many as 53,600 corneas were collected in India in 2015-16 but less than half— 22,838 to be precise — were utilised, according to data by the Eye Bank Association of Indi (EBAI). Eye banks, a critical link between eye donors and recipients, are forced to discard the remaining because of poor quality and/or prevalent disorders.

A majority of the corneas come from people who have pledged to donate their eyes or through hospitals where trained personnel are stationed to motivate relatives of the deceased to donate. “There is a window of six hours after death occurs for a successful cornea extraction,” says Preeti Monga, a visually challenged person who runs Silver Linings, an NGO, in Delhi. “The family and relatives are emotionally stressed at that time, and even those who have pledged to donate their eyes are let down by their families in these critical hours.”

Even when donors make good their pledge, the infrastructure to support this chain — eye banks and cornea specialists — is lacking. There are 700-odd cornea specialists in the country, which means, there is just one specialist for every 10,000 corneal blindness patients. No wonder the specialists are an overworked lot.

Dr Manisha Acharya, director of the eye bank at Dr Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital, in New Delhi says there are just 40-50 active eye banks in India. This despite the government aggressively promoting eye banks about a decade ago, resulting in as many as 700 of them opening across the country. Dr Acharya says,“Those operating in a haphazard manner, and without a viable collection rate, soon cease to be active. The government now realises that professionally run eye banks, with larger storage facilities and modern infrastructure, are a better model to follow.

A common database

Sightlife International coordinates with over 12 eye banks across India to facilitate corneal transplants by linking patients to hospitals where matching tissues are available. You can reach them at: 011- 41383500.

Become a donor

To give someone the gift of sight, you can pledge to be a donor. Get in touch with Silver Linings in Delhi (9810001616) or with Sahiyara Eye Bank (022-25341919) in Mumbai.