In 2015-2016, Uttar Pradesh recorded 190,000 corneal blind patient. Only 650 out of them were blessed with surgeries. Number of years to mitigate the problem seems everlasting. The primary reason of tackling the issue in India is the organ donation taboo.
To address the same, Sightlife, an international organization, successfully eradicating corneal blindness worldwide, has partnered with King George Medical University (KGMU), Lucknow, to open KGMU UP Community Eye Bank. Supported by The Hans Foundation and in technical partnership with Sitapur Eye Hospital Trust, this state-of-the-art eye bank is dedicated to restoring sight to the corneal blind. Together, they will provide full scope of services ranging from counselling for families, cornea/eye collection and processing, distribution of corneas to surgeons, and training for technicians and surgeons. All is done to ultimately restore sight to the corneal blind.
Claire Bonilla, Chief Global Officer, SightLife and
Atul Kapoor, Vice President of Asia, SightLife Global Programs discuss the first Public-Private Partnership to address Corneal Blindness in India.
What is Corneal Blindness for laymen?Blindness on a whole is a problem worldwide and there are many drivers to cause blindness. If you think about a watch, that glass layer on the top of the watch is like the outer layer of the eye. This layer either gets scarred or effected by infection or disease, leading to someone unable to see through that lens. As a cure, you need to remove the glass and replace it with a new one and a clear one. Hence, it's much more complex than a cataract making donation most critical part to the process.
Organ donation is a huge taboo in India. Being an international NGO, how do you plan to manage this taboo? India has the largest population of corneal blind in the world. There are about 5.6 million blind in India, yet the EBAI record about 22,858 eye transplants. The difference is overwhelming and threatening.
In some countries like India and China, value and education of donation is not much known. While in Sri Lanka, where 95% practice Buddhist culture, donation is the part of the culture since Budhha himself donated his eyes. Therefore, it is important to educate people on the value of donation.
We have detailed cultural sensitiveness training empowering eye donation counsellors to make successful conversations with donor family in the event of death.
That's interesting. Could you share the structure of this kind of a conversation?We start with condolences recognizing the tragedy and the loss. It moves to asking about their understanding and knowledge about organ donation. Just from that alone, you will understand where the person is coming from- whether the person is apprehensive or has a fear of donation. Mostly, there is a fear or inhibition of donating. The obvious consequence is to ask about the reason behind the fear.
The apprehension comes from the difference in the appearance of the body. In this case we explain the non-invasiveness of the recovery process. If its religion, we talk about how others from the same religion have donated. We never push but honor the decision of the member. But at last, the idea is to put through that out of this tragedy and loss, a gift of sight and life can be given to someone. Educating someone about corneal blind and how mothers have lost children because they couldn't cure corneal blindness. Children can get educated, go to school. People tend to hold on to something good that comes out of the tragedy.
In the coming years, the organization aims to create a sustainable model to track the cured corneal blind patients and craft a follow-up care system for the rural population.
