At this mortuary, the dead gift sight to many

Bengaluru: Six months back, the parents of two children from Krishnagiri district came to meet Dr. P K Devadas, the former medical superintendent of Victoria Hospital for a moving reason. "Their two children (a boy and a girl) from Krishnagiri district, were blind from birth and needed corneas to regain full vision. We had given them fresh corneas collected at our mortuary and conducted a Keratoplasty. Now, they have regained full vision," says Dr. P K Devadas, who is the director cum dean of Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMCRI).

Government-run Victoria hospital's mortuary is turning out to be a life saver for many blind people in the city and across Karnataka. The initiative was started by Dr. Devadas under Hospital Cornea Retrieval Programme (HCRP). To meet the acute shortage in quality corneas BMCRI signed an MoU with Lions’ International eye bank which is a unit of BW Lions Super Speciality Eye Hospital which is a charitable eye hospital and the only accredited eye hospital in Karnataka.

"The initiative was started by Dr. Devadas who was the HOD of the Forensic Department of Victoria Hospital, who was very keen on addressing the issue of cornea shortage. Through this initiative our grief counselors at the Hospital's mortuary, counsel families who have lost their near and dear ones due to unnatural circumstances," says Sudhakar, former eye bank supervisor at Lions’ Eye Bank. He  says that the demand for good quality corneas leads to all eyes collected, sent to Minto Hospital.

All the cases coming to the Hospital's mortuary are medico-legal cases as the cause of death is not natural, like suicide cases or electrification cases and are mostly road accident cases. And, the hospital does not wait for police consent in such cases and goes ahead with the eye donation once the family gives its approval. "Once we get the family's written consent we take the eyes and we do not wait for police approval or  for them to come to the spot," adds Dr Devadas.

Speaking about the advantages of such donations over voluntary eye donations Dr. Rekha Gyanchand, medical director of Lion's international eye bank, says, "In voluntary eye donations most of the eyes that we get are from elderly people, hence the corneas are not of a very good quality and many eyes have diseases and infections and cannot be utilized. But victims of  road accidents and suicides are generally young, so the corneas are  of a good quality and 80%-85% are utilised for cornea transplants, unlike voluntary donations where we can utilise only 30% of the donations."

"Good quality corneas through this initiative are no longer restricted to the people who can afford it at private eye hospitals, but also the poor people who cannot afford private eye bank charges," adds Sudhakar. The Lions’ eye bank has collected 202 eyes since May last year from the hospital's mortuary. "Initially when we started this programme we used to get only one pair of eyes, but for the past 4-5 months this has picked up and now we have reached 7-8 pairs monthly . Once in a single month we got ten pairs of eyes. And almost 70% of the donations have been utilised," informs Dr Rekha.