Awareness talks, a drawing competition for children and felicitation of donor families marked the observance of the 34th National Eye Donation Fortnight by the Department of Ophthalmology, Jipmer.
The annual theme this time was “Light up a life, donate your eyes”.
Subashini Kaliaperumal, Professor and Head of Ophthalmology, laid out the objectives of the eye donation programme.
In an awareness talk, Ramesh Babu, additional professor cleared the myths and doubts regarding eye donation.
The programme was attended by donor families, patients, general public, staff of Jipmer, students of Kendriya Vidyalaya school, paramedical students including trauma care and nursing staff.
Awareness lectures were also conducted at Vivekananda Rural Community College, Kalapet, and Usha Lakshmanan School, Tirukannur, and a drawing competition for KV-1 school children from classes 6-10.
A felicitation was also hosted for donor families. According to Jipmer, blindness is one of the major public health problems in developing countries. According to World Health Organization, corneal diseases (damage to the tissue covering the front of eye called cornea) are among the major causes of vision loss and blindness, after cataract and glaucoma.
Corneal transplantation
By donating eyes after death, a corneal blind person’s vision can be restored through corneal transplantation, where the damaged cornea is replaced by a healthy cornea from the donor.
