70% drop in eye donations
In 2021-22, 589 donations were made compared to 1978 in 2017-18
There has been a 70 per cent drop in the number of eye donations across Mumbai in the last five years, which means only 589 eyes were donated in 2021-22 compared to 1,978 in 2017-18. Officials have attributed this to the ongoing pandemic, which has led to very few people donating their eyes.
A senior health official from the civic health department said that there has been a massive 70 per cent drop in corneal transplant surgeries post-pandemic, resulting in a longer waiting list and an equally long waiting period. He said, “The transplant surgeries have slowly started picking up after the Union government lifted the restrictions on voluntary eye donations across the country in December, but it will take some time to regain the earlier pace.”
Dr Nita Shah, the head of clinical services at Dr Agarwal Eye Hospital in Mumbai, said that the eye banking services had to be halted to safeguard the health of the eye bank staff and the recipients. The resumption of the eye banking services was done very slowly and in a stepwise manner. As a result, the hospital, as well as voluntary eye donations, reduced drastically and the gap between the demand and supply widened.
Dr Shah said, “Eye donation is the only effective method to reduce the burden of corneal blindness. It is remarkable to note that a single donor can provide the corneal tissue to two affected individuals.” She added that strict implementation of SOPs, provision of personal protective measures to the eye bank staff, training of staff and uniform donor selection criteria will help in restoring the hospital cornea retrieval programme and increasing the voluntary eye donations again.
Dr Vandana Khullar, senior ophthalmologist, PSRI Hospital, New Delhi, claimed that apart from the pandemic there are several other factors due to which eye donations have come down. “Lack of awareness related to eye donation is one of the factors,” said Dr Khullar.
A Mumbai-based consultant cornea specialist from the Eye Bank Coordination and Research Centre said that before the pandemic, a person used to get the donor cornea tissue within a month in big cities like Mumbai and Thane. But now the waiting period has gone up to two to three months.
“We used to take the donations only from the Covid negative patients, but there were no guidelines in place. So we used to retrieve eyes from the deceased at the hospital as we knew their Covid19 status,” he said.
According to doctors, over 300 patients undergo corneal transplants at Sir Jamshedji Jeejeebhoy (JJ) Hospital every year. Moreover, these are also used for research purposes.
“The eyes have to be removed within six hours of death; if that’s not possible, then we use them for the research purpose. Most of the time, families refuse to donate eyes due to superstitions for which we counsel them and explain why they should donate eyes of a brain-dead patient,” said a doctor.