Priest builds network to help blind people see

Father George Kannanthanam is founder of Project Vision, a movement that promotes cornea donation.

New Delhi:  Premlata Bindra stood surprised when when trained volunteers came to retrieve her dead husband's eyes following his death. While TS Bindra had told his family about his pledge to donate his corneas, they had missed informing the eye collection center.

In their hour of grief, the Bindra family waited as the volunteers from the eye collection center surgically removed Bindra's eyes from which the corneas would later be taken for transplantation.

"This came as a total surprise to me," said Premlata, who lives in the Hoshiarpur district of the northern Indian state of Punjab. Only when the volunteers came a couple of hours after death did she, and others in the family remember, that Bindra had discussed cornea donation, Premlata told ucaness.com.

Bindra had pledged to donate his corneas a few days before he passed away on June 30. A close friend, who knew about his pledge, informed the eye collection center so they could successfully carry out the procedure, which needed to be performed no more than six hours after death.

"Had the center not been informed on time, my husband's last wish would not have been fulfilled," Premlata said. Under Indian laws, even if the donor has pledged a donation in writing, consent of their close relatives is necessary.

According to Father George Kannanthanam a missing link between the deceased family and eye collection centers means that not all eye donation pledges turn into reality. Father Kannanthanam is founder of Project Vision, a movement that promotes eye donation.

He said that India is "no where near to getting the required number of cornea transplants."

Every year India needs some 140,000 cornea transplantations, but presently only 30,000-40,000 corneas are collected, and roughly half of them go unused. Last year, 53,000 corneas were collected, but only 26,000 could be transplanted — the rest were damaged or otherwise unusable.

Father Kannanthanam asserts that India needs a community-based program to serve as a link between the bereaved family and the eye collection centers at the moment of death.

"The government has built enough infrastructure for cornea donations but the link between the donor and center is missing. The willingness to donate becomes meaningless without this link," he said.

Once the whole eyes are taken from the deceased donor, they are then delivered to an eye collection center where a medical specialist takes out the corneas which are then stored properly for transplantation.

Since 1976 the government has run the National Program for Control of Blindness and over the years it has built up 750 cornea banks and almost double the number of eye collection centers. "But we are falling short in transplantations," the priest said.

The Vision Ambassadors program is the needed link, according to Father Kannanthanam. A Vision Ambassador is a volunteer who may be a neighbor, friend or villager who is aware of a donor's pledge. Soon after the donor's death they inform the eye collection center. They are needed because family members, even if aware of the pledge, may forget or may be focused on other matters when their loved one dies.



Parishioners as Vision Ambassadors

Presently there are 1,000 Vision Ambassadors across the country. "But a lot more are needed," says Father Kannanthanam. "Maybe one or two in every apartment or parish."

Many new volunteers are coming forward.

There are 19 million Catholics in India. The country has some 21,000 parishes across 172 dioceses. The total number of Christians of all denominations is 24 million — just 2.3 percent of India's mostly Hindu population of 1.2 billion people.

One community that had decided to become involved in the Vision Ambassador program, as a model for other parishes, is St. Mary's Church, Bommanahalli, in Mandya Diocese, Karnataka. Parish elders have agreed to coordinate cornea donations in their area.

Some 500 parishioners of the church also pledged their eyes on July 31.

Joseph Philip, one of the parishioners, told ucanews.com: "We are committed to the cause and will do it. We will make sure that each donated eye is retrieved in time, making the promise of donation a success."

Source: UCAN