Walkathon held by Dr Agarwal’s Eye Hospital to create awareness on national eye donation fortnight

Bengaluru, September 6, 2019: Dr.Agarwal’s Eye Hospital, Bengaluru, organized a walkathon to raise awareness regarding eye donation from Coles Road to Goodwill School. About 200 students from Goodwill Girls High School, St Joseph's Convent Girls High School, Patients who underwent Eye Transplant, Hospital staff and other members of the public participated and pledged to donate their eyes. The walkathon was flagged off by Chief Guest Prashant Siddanagowda, Assistant Commissioner of Police. The chief guest ensured to support the cause for donating eyes on behalf of the department by filling the necessary documents and encouraged the students and his team to support a noble cause. Prashant Siddanagowda, Assistant Commissioner of Police said, “Eye donation is rarely spoken & encouraged in our country. To help build awareness in this area, I am delighted to support Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital in their drive for eye donation among the young students. On this occasion, I also pledge to donate my eyes and will request every individual to be a responsible citizen and help someone see the world by donating their eyes.” Speaking on the increase cases of blindness, Dr Ram Mirlay, Head, Clinical Services, Dr Agarwal’s Eye Hospital, said, “Karnataka is among Top 5 states for Visual disability and 9.5 Lakhs Blind in Karnataka. One out of every five blind person in the world lives in India and if just 1% of Indian population pledged to donate its eyes, the supply of corneas would be enough to completely cure the incidence of eye blindness in the country and more than 2.5 lakh blind people in India could regain eyesight if they get a corneal transplant. This drive will spread the message on the importance of eye donation.” Supporting the eye donation drive, Dr. Archana S- Head, Clinical Services Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital, Bengaluru, said, “Eye donation drives helps in building awareness among people. In India, we have about 4.6 million people with corneal blindness and this is expected to increase to 10 million by 2020. Currently there is a huge gap among the number of people awaiting corneal transplant and the available donors in our country. Hence we need to increase the number of eye donations in India.” Present at the eye donation drive, Dr. Raghu Nagaraju Senior Consultant, Ophthalmologist, Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital, Bengaluru, said, “Today we face the lack of eye bank units in Karnataka. We need to increase the number of eye banks in Karnataka across Tier I & Tier II cities, which will reduce the transportation duration since the cornea has to be collected at the right time, stored promptly and transplanted as soon as possible. To tackle the problem of blindness, all government-run district hospitals must have a corneal specialized surgeon. Hospitals in these cities has a high demand of ophthalmologists because of the growing cases in blindness. Additionally, the hospitals need to work closely with the government to build infrastructure that is needed for corneal transplantation across government-run medical colleges.” Talking about the growing cases of Corneal transplantation, Dr Sanjana Vatsa, Consultant Ophthalmologist, Dr Agarwal’s Eye Hospital Bengaluru said, “There were patients who had advanced Keratoconus in both eyes and cornea showed intacs removal scars in both eyes, with fundus normal in both eyes. Those patients have been advised for corneal transplantation and we did the surgeries successfully through the help of available corneas at that time. It is not always that we find cornea on time. This becomes more critical for us to create awareness on eye donation.”