BENGALURU: The National Eye Donation Fortnight is observed every year between August 25 and September 8 to create awareness about eye donation, corneal blindness and corneal transplants among people. Dr Rohit Shetty, Chairman, of Narayana Nethralaya, said the demise of Kannada actor Puneeth Rajkumar in 2022 was the biggest boost ever for people to pledge to donate their eyes. Puneeth, like his father, had donated his eyes, which helped doctors perform four different transplants.
Inspired by this celebrity, many people came forward to pledge as well. In the last year, until August 2023, 1.84 lakh people pledged to donate their eyes across all centres of Narayana Nethralaya. Minto Eye Hospital, affiliated with the Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMCRI), too, witnessed 2,194 people taking the pledge to donate their eyes in 2022.
Doctors said that a sudden spike is noticed only when news of famous celebrities donating their eyes comes to light. Otherwise, there is a dip in numbers. People’s participation gradually dropped after a few months. “Celebrities have a much larger impact on people, who get inspired by actors. When people see actors volunteering to donate their organs, it encourages them to go ahead and take similar actions,” Dr Shetty added.
He said that proactive measures should be taken to ensure the number of pledges remains constant. It is important to increase the pledges to up to 10 lakh every year across the state. This will create a domino effect and spread the word to a much larger population, he added.
Dr BL Sujatha Rathod, Director, Minto Eye Hospital, also mentioned that the death of Kannada film industry celebrities, like Puneeth Rajkumar and Vijay Sanchari -- who had volunteered to donate their organs, inspired many people, especially youngsters, to come forward to pledge their eyes. The hospital had even introduced a QR code that one could scan to make a pledge. Earlier, there was hardly any awareness about eye donation, but things have improved largely over the past few decades, Dr Rathod added.
Midnight Run for eye donation
Advocating for more people to donate their eyes, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime), Bengaluru, SD Sharanappa gave an example of late actor Dr Rajkumar and his family’s contribution towards eye donation. Their noble gesture largely helped spread the message to create awareness about eye donation and combating corneal blindness. He was speaking at the midnight run - ‘Run for Sight’ - organised by Narayana Nethralaya on September 2. Close to 300 people participated in the run, with Major General Ravi Murugan presiding over as chief guest.