Actor Shiva Rajkumar follows in father's footsteps by pledging to donate eyes

Following in the footsteps of his late father Dr Rajkumar, film actor, producer and television presenter Dr Shiva Rajkumar pledged to donate his eyes at Narayana Nethralaya. Dr Rajkumar had also pledged his eyes here and an eye bank was started in his name in 1994.

Dr Shiva Rajkumar was speaking at the press meet of the film Akshi, which was the Best Kannada Feature Film at the 67th National Film Awards, and includes the story of how Dr Rajkumar donated his eyes when he passed away in 2006. This hospital was instrumental in lending support in terms of medical advice for the shooting of this film, which aims to raise awareness on eye donation.

"It is extremely satisfying to note that a topic that is so dear to my father has won an award. I don't feel I have lost my father as he lives on through his eyes that were donated. People must come forward to watch this film," said Dr Shiva Rajkumar, who added that his brother and him have already pledged their bodies for organ donation.

Akshi director Manoj Kumar shared that the hospital team provided them with statistics, factually correct medical information and cleared doubts while shooting the film. Owing to the medical inputs, the film team was made aware of more aspects and the script was developed further.

“Akshi is our effort to bring maximum focus on eye donation and how society views this issue. The subject of eye donation calls for a larger dialogue. We learnt the enormity of it when we began interacting with Dr Bhujang Shetty and his team,” Kumar added.

The late Parvathamma Rajkumar also donated her eyes as part of the family’s pledge to ophthalmological care.

Dr. Bujang Shetty, Chairman and Managing Director of Narayana Nethralaya, said 4-5 people can benefit from one person's eyes as only the part of the eye needed by the beneficiary is taken from the donor and the remaining parts can be used by other visually impaired people.