As part of the National Eye Donation Fortnight, observed every year across the country in the last week of August and the first week of September, Aravind Eye Care System (AECS) organised a motorcycle rally from Madurai railway station to Aravind Eye Hospital on Saturday.
About 100 staff members, including about 30 women, from Aravind Eye Care System and Aurolab took part in the rally, which was flagged of by Arun Balagopalan, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic), Madurai City.
Commenting on the rally, N. Venkatesh Prajna, Chief, Department of Cornea and Director of Academics, said that the idea was to rekindle the awareness among the public on eye donation. “The awareness is good in Tamil Nadu, which ranks first in eye donation in the country. We already have a situation where the recipient wait list is almost nil. We need to keep the momentum going,” Dr. Prajna said.
ADVERTISEMENT
He added that the streamlining and simplification of procedures related to organ donation and government schemes such as Chief Minister’s Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme has made more transplants possible and affordable to people from all sections of the society.
While AECS already had strong collaboration with medical colleges, Dr. Prajna said that the organisation will be focussing more on creating awareness and strengthening collaboration regarding eye donation at the district and taluk level government hospitals and Primary Health Centres in Madurai, Theni and Dindigul districts.