Health department has prepared a proposal to make the Master Blaster the state eye donation ambassador
HAVING featured in a water conservation campaign for the BMC last year, Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar may now be seen taking up the cause of eye donations in the state on behalf of the health department.
"We have already drafted a proposal which we will present to Tendulkar, asking him to be the ambassador for eye donations in the state.
At any given time, there are 10,000 people in the state who require corneal transplants and we are getting less than 6,000 eye donations annually.
If relatives of accident victims come forward and donate the eyeballs of the deceased, the problem of paucity will be solved.
We want this message to reach every individual in Maharashtra and who better then Sachin to get the message across?" said Dr Ashok Podar, joint director, National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB).
Senior officials in the health department are, in fact, already excited about the proposal and have agreed to make monetary allocations for the campaign to get visibility through the television and print mediums.
"Sachin has always supported causes which are in public interest and we are sure that he will not deny our request," said a senior health official.
Last year, Mumbai was second only to Chennai in terms of eye donations. 1,737 of the 4,947 eye donations in the state were from the city.
According to a review by the NPCB, Pune and Nashik also had good numbers with 1,432 and 1,506 corneas being donated respectively. That, however, is still not enough for meeting the requirement.
"More people are coming forward to pledge their eyes, but that is not of immediate help. We need eye donations to reduce the cases of corneal blindness in the state, and if a person like Sachin becomes the ambassador, the number is bound to rise as people idolise him," said renowned ophthalmologist Dr T P Lahane.
Explaining how the procedure works, Dr Podar said, "Corneal opacity or corneal tear can be corrected by a corneal transplant, but every donated eyeball cannot be used for a transplant. Eyeballs retrieved from the dead body within six hours are usually healthy for transplantation," said Dr Podar.
Donation law
The government is sitting on a proposal for drafting a law similar to that in western countries, wherein the eyes of the deceased are removed for donation during the postmortem.
When a person expires in neighbouring Sri Lanka, the eyes become national property and the island country is known to export 10,000 corneas to 65 countries each year.
Students too
In a bid to increase donations from rural areas, the NPCB has decided to rope in school volunteers. "We will make students from Std X certified volunteers, who can reach spots where accidents have taken place and convince the relatives to donate the eyes of the deceased. We will train them and give them brochures to aid them in this task. In villages, news of such accidents spreads quickly and our volunteers can reach the spot easily," said Dr Podar.
Campaign
HEALTH department officials said the following messages would be put across through the campaign:
- Everyone should come forward and pledge their eyes
- Relatives of those who die in road accidents should readily donate the eyes of the deceased by calling doctors from the nearest eye bank
- Relatives of those who meet a natural death should also come forward to donate the eyes of the deceased to give the gift of sight to others. Even if the deceased had not pledged his eyes while alive, the immediate family has the authority to take the decision of donating his eyes
- Only those people suffering from HIV, diabetes, cancer and hepatitis are not eligible for eye donations
Sachin - "He's bowling well at the moment and looks in good form. But we're not thinking about what they will do to us. We're more interested in what we can do to them."
HAVING featured in a water conservation campaign for the BMC last year, Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar may now be seen taking up the cause of eye donations in the state on behalf of the health department.
"We have already drafted a proposal which we will present to Tendulkar, asking him to be the ambassador for eye donations in the state.
At any given time, there are 10,000 people in the state who require corneal transplants and we are getting less than 6,000 eye donations annually.
If relatives of accident victims come forward and donate the eyeballs of the deceased, the problem of paucity will be solved.
We want this message to reach every individual in Maharashtra and who better then Sachin to get the message across?" said Dr Ashok Podar, joint director, National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB).
Senior officials in the health department are, in fact, already excited about the proposal and have agreed to make monetary allocations for the campaign to get visibility through the television and print mediums.
"Sachin has always supported causes which are in public interest and we are sure that he will not deny our request," said a senior health official.
Last year, Mumbai was second only to Chennai in terms of eye donations. 1,737 of the 4,947 eye donations in the state were from the city.
According to a review by the NPCB, Pune and Nashik also had good numbers with 1,432 and 1,506 corneas being donated respectively. That, however, is still not enough for meeting the requirement.
"More people are coming forward to pledge their eyes, but that is not of immediate help. We need eye donations to reduce the cases of corneal blindness in the state, and if a person like Sachin becomes the ambassador, the number is bound to rise as people idolise him," said renowned ophthalmologist Dr T P Lahane.
Explaining how the procedure works, Dr Podar said, "Corneal opacity or corneal tear can be corrected by a corneal transplant, but every donated eyeball cannot be used for a transplant. Eyeballs retrieved from the dead body within six hours are usually healthy for transplantation," said Dr Podar.
Donation law
The government is sitting on a proposal for drafting a law similar to that in western countries, wherein the eyes of the deceased are removed for donation during the postmortem.
When a person expires in neighbouring Sri Lanka, the eyes become national property and the island country is known to export 10,000 corneas to 65 countries each year.
Students too
In a bid to increase donations from rural areas, the NPCB has decided to rope in school volunteers. "We will make students from Std X certified volunteers, who can reach spots where accidents have taken place and convince the relatives to donate the eyes of the deceased. We will train them and give them brochures to aid them in this task. In villages, news of such accidents spreads quickly and our volunteers can reach the spot easily," said Dr Podar.
Campaign
HEALTH department officials said the following messages would be put across through the campaign:
- Everyone should come forward and pledge their eyes
- Relatives of those who die in road accidents should readily donate the eyes of the deceased by calling doctors from the nearest eye bank
- Relatives of those who meet a natural death should also come forward to donate the eyes of the deceased to give the gift of sight to others. Even if the deceased had not pledged his eyes while alive, the immediate family has the authority to take the decision of donating his eyes
- Only those people suffering from HIV, diabetes, cancer and hepatitis are not eligible for eye donations
Sachin - "He's bowling well at the moment and looks in good form. But we're not thinking about what they will do to us. We're more interested in what we can do to them."
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