NALGONDA: Notwithstanding slogans like “Make someone’s future bright, donate your sight” and “Give the gift of vision”, the fact is that for the past 20 days, eye donation in Nalgonda has come to a standstill though donors are coming forward.This is because there is no doctor to harvest the corneas of a deceased person though his or her relatives may be willing to donate them.
The office of the District Blindness Control Society officer, who is an eye specialist trained to harvest corneas, is located in the Government Hospital. One of the responsibilities of this officer is to motivate people to donate their eyes after their demise. During the awareness programme the Society organises, volunteers give the phone number of the doctor to the relatives of the donor to contact when he or she passes away.
Once the donor breathes his or her last, the doctor has to harvest the corneas from both eyes of the deceased and send it to the Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital in Hyderabad in a special storage box. These corneas are then transplanted to two blind people, giving them the gift of vision.However, no cornea has been harvested in Nalgonda district for the past 20 days as the Society officer was transferred that many days ago and no replacement has been appointed yet.
While relatives of deceased donors are calling the Society office to come and harvest the cornea, there is no response.A villager from Nalgonda mandal said, “After my father passed away, my family members were ready to donate his eyes. I called the Society to inform them to come and harvest the eyes but someone replied that the doctor has been transferred. I enquired with other doctors but there was no response from them. I had hoped my deceased father’s eyes would give sight to two blind people, but this was not to be.”He rued that due to there being no doctor in the district, two people lost a chance to get vision.
The villager said that he was sure many others had called the Society like he did. “Despite this, the authorities have failed to respond and appoint a doctor, which is proof of their negligence,” he said.When contacted, Nalgonda district headquarters hospital superintendent L Lachu told TNIE that a replacement would be appointed shortly.