Chennai: Tamil Nadu ranks first among all the States for largest number of organ transplants, but even after a huge number of cornea transplants conducted every year in around 33 approved hospitals in the State, a large number of people remain on the waiting list.
The present annual requirement and availability of corneas in the State show a huge gap between demand and supply of cornea. As per the data available with TRANSTAN, Transplant Authority Government of Tamil Nadu, at least 30,000 individuals are awaiting eye transplant at various approved hospitals, but only 1,517 have been undertaken until August 22, 2017.
Medicos stress on the need of increased organ harvesting as the number of road accidents has increased which provide more scope for organ harvesting. Renowned ophthalmologist, Dr V M Sankaran said, "The numbers have been high, but if people join hands for organ transplants, corneal blindness can be curbed. Volunteer efforts lack in spite of available corneas."
However, various other issues such as transportation, storage and handling of cornea are also important. “Around a lakh of corneas go waste in India due to improper storage and handling inappropriately, whereas new technologies have been introduced in other countries and we have not yet adopted them. Various technologies that support corneal donation should also be adopted to fight against corneal blindness," said Dr Samuel JK Abraham, Director, Nichi-In Centre for Regenerative Medicine.
State Health Department hopes that National eye donation fortnight that started on August 25 would bring a surge in eye donations and give a new lease of life to many.
