Telangana: Eye donations on halt due to absence of eye specialist

Nalgonda: Following the transfer of the District Blindness Control Society officer, an eye specialist trained to harvest corneas, the process of eye donation has come to a halt in the Nalgonda district despite a number of donors coming forward for the donation.  

After the transfer of the society officer, no replacement has been made so far due to which no cornea has been harvested for the past twenty days because of the doctor's absence. 

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The office of the District Blindness Control Society officer is situated in the Government Hospital, which is responsible for motivating people to donate their eyes after they pass away. For this purpose, the society also organises an awareness programme where the volunteers provide the phone number of the doctor to the relatives of the donor to contact when he or she passes away. 

After the donor passes away, the doctor is responsible for harvesting the corneas from both eyes of the deceased and sending it to the Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital in Hyderabad in a special storage box. 

These transferred corneas are then transplanted to blind persons. This process has been affected in the Nalgonda district following the transfer of the society officer since no cornea has been harvested there for the past 20 days. It has been reported by The New Indian Express that there is no response from the Society office when the relatives of the deceased donor tried calling them to come and harvest the cornea. 

A villager from Nalgonda Mandal observed, "After my father passed away, my family members were ready to donate his eyes. I called the Society to inform them to come and harvest the eyes but someone replied that the doctor has been transferred. I enquired with other doctors but there was no response from them. I had hoped my deceased father's eyes would give sight to two blind people, but this was not to be." 

He observed that two people have lost their chance to get a vision due to the absence of a doctor in the village. Stating that many others might have called the Society like he did for cornea harvesting, the villager said, "Despite this, the authorities have failed to respond and appoint a doctor, which is proof of their negligence." 

Meanwhile, the Nalgonda district headquarters hospital superintendent L Lachu said that they would appoint a replacement shortly.

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