Eye Donation

The greatest pleasure comes from giving sight to a blind person. Imagine the world of a person who cannot see. It’s usually a world without hope. But for some of these carnally blind persons, there is still hope. And this hope comes eye donation, since what’s being donated is useless to the donor after death.

You have the power to bring immense joy by giving sight to the blind.

Why:

In India, we have an estimated 4.6 million people with corneal blindness that is curable through corneal transplant that’s possible by eye donation. More than 90% of the corneal transplants are carried out successfully and help restore vision in people with corneal blindness. Corneal transplant in infants born with cloudy cornea can make a massive difference to their lives.

Corneal Blindness:

What is Corneal Blindness? Cornea is the transparent skin cover at the front of the eye. It is like the windscreen of a car; if damaged, vision is lost.

How:

By replacing the damaged cornea with a good cornea, these carnally blind persons can gain vision and see again.

Causes:

Eye infections, eye injuries and malnutrition, if not attended to in time, cause blindness. A very large percentage of carnally blind are children belonging to poor families.

Eye donation and restoration of sight through corneal transplant is an exciting combination of selfless charity and the miracle of medical technology.

Facts about eye donation:

Eyes should be donated within 6-8 hours of death.
Anyone can be a donor, irrespective of age, sex, blood-group or religion.
Total removal time is about 15-20 minutes.
Spectacle wearers, hypertensive and diabetics can also donate their eyes.
There is no disfigurement caused to the donor’s face.
Eyes can be donated even if the deceased had not formally pledged their eyes during their lifetime.
The eye bank team will immediately reach the donor’s home to collect the eyes and this service is free.
Eyes are never bought or sold.
All religions endorse eye donation. 

Myths about eye donation:

Face/body will be disfigured.
Will be born blind in the next birth.
Will not be able to see God. 

Contraindications for corneal transplantation:

Active Viral Hepatitis
Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) or HIV
Active Viral Encephalitis or Encephalitis of unknown origin
Rabies
Active Septicemia
Retinoblastoma
Leukemia and Lymphoma 

Conclusions:

Pledge to donate your eyes. Make it your family’s tradition.
Motivate and educate others about eye donation.
Motivate the next of kin of the deceased to donate their eyes.

Types of Blindness

Blindness is the condition where one lacks visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors. 

Complete Blindness:

Complete or Total Blindness is the complete lack of form and visual light perception and is clinically recorded as NLP, an abbreviation for No Light Perception. Blindness is frequently used to describe severe visual impairment with residual vision.

Complete blindness causes complete darkness in the affected person’s sight. There is no perception of light, color, shape or movement.

Complete blindness, though rare, can be caused by any type of retinal detachment or damage to the optic nerve or a disease that attacks the central nervous system, such as brain tumor or a stroke.

Legal Blindness

Legal blindness is defined as having equal to or worse than a 20/200 visual acuity in the better eye with the best correction possible.

Legal blindness typically indicates that the central vision is lost while the peripheral vision is usually intact. Patients are usually able to function to a certain extent.

This means that a legally blind individual would have to stand 20 feet (6.1 m) from an object to see it, with corrective lenses and with the same degree of clarity as a normal sighted person could from 200 feet (61 m). People with average acuity, who nonetheless have a visual field of less than 20 degrees (the norm being 180 degrees), are also classified as being legally blind. 

Colour Blindness

People who suffer from Colour blindness, also called dyschromatopsia, are unable to distinguish between certain colors.

This type of blindness usually affects men and the most common form of color blindness is red-green color blindness. Color blindness is almost always present since birth and is usually caused by the presence of a defective gene in the X chromosome. 

Night Blindness

Night blindness is vision impairment that occurs at night or when the surrounding light is dim.

It does not generally result in a complete lack of vision, but significantly impairs vision. People with night blindness often have difficulty driving at night or seeing stars. These factors include cataracts, birth defects, Vitamin A deficiency or a retinal disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa.

Signs of blindness in babies

Blindness in children is extremely rare and is very difficult to detect, especially in newborns.

Premature babies are more vulnerable to blindness. If a baby is born blind, it’s usually because of abnormalities during development, a hereditary disease, injury at birth or congenital infection that caused the damage. 

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