Having made a mark in the spread of voluntary blood donation, Ashdeep today launched yet another noble cause for generating voluntary eye donation awareness campaign in the state. Ashadeep started its campaign from RKMV Shimla.
Ashadeep’s main objective to start from a Girls College was to tap in the potential of girls to play a pro-active role as agents for bringing about social change for voluntary eye donation and also provide the emotional support at the time of crisis and help in motivating the will of the relatives after the death of the deceased.
The team of doctors from Eye Bank, Indira Gandhi Medical College assisted in sensitizing the students about the growing demand of cornea transplant across the state. Indira Gandhi Medical College, Associate Professor, Dr Ram Lal Sharma spoke about two types of eye donations voluntary and motivational donation at the will of the relatives of the deceased. Speaking about global scenario on corneal blindness, he said that there were 10 million corneal blindness worldwide of which one million were children.
On a nation average in Himachal Pradesh there were 4000 to 5000 needed corneal grafting. Ninety percent of eye donations in India come from voluntary aged donors and of which only 30 to 40 percent are used for transplant owing to the quality of the cornea of the elderly donors. He further added that in India 9 million deaths occur every year of which in 33,577 eyes were donated in 2008 which accounts for less than 1 percent eye donation. Underlining the need for sensitization he said the sensitivity of the society towards eye donations in the country was poor as compared to the neighbouring state Sri Lanka that has 60 percent donations post death.
Ashadeep President, Sushil Tanwar appreciated the efforts of the RKMV authorities in playing an instrumental role for the launch of the campaign. He has demanded for the need of a law to help support the eye donation movement whereby doctors can harvest the cornea of accidental death victims and that may be considered deemed consent by the family members.
RKMV, Principal, Prof. Naresh Mahajan lauded Ashadeep’s endeavor for the noble cause assured all help in near future for such initiatives that can help in the welfare of the society. He called upon the students and the teaching faculty to rise above all religion and not only support their will for voluntary eye donation but also spread the message across the various sections of the society.
