Lack of awareness, traditional beliefs coupled with infrastructural bottlenecks-Indians lag far behind their tiny neighbours, Sri Lanka when it comes to eye donation.The country has around 1.5 million blind people and an approximate number of 50,000 people are added to this list every year. Only 25,000 eyes are available for transplant with a waiting period of 2-3 years, which leaves an inexplicable gap between the availability and the need."The biggest challenge for us is to motivate people by clearing the traditional myths and religious beliefs surrounding eye donation so that eyesight could be restored to not one but two people (a pair of donor's eyes are given to two recipients), says Deputy Director-General, Opthalmology, Directorate General of Health Sciences (DGHS), Doctor Rachel Jose.For educating general public and counselling the next of the deceased,'grief-counselors', would be trained on a larger scale who will augment to the existing tribe.The trilogy of obstacles complete their vicious cycle with logistics like- availability of a trained paramedical team to quickly retrieve the eyes and transportation of 'quality' eyes in the stipulated time, says Dr Jose.
