Corneal donations can transform thousands of lives, says AST

Rawalpindi: Major General (r) Rehmat Khan, the president of Al-Shifa Trust, on Monday, said that corneal contributions can give a fresh lease on life to thousands of people as nine thousand people have been on the trust’s waiting list for corneal transplants.

He noted that the trust receives 800 corneal donations annually and has increased its capacity accordingly. However, the majority on the waiting list have to wait for years to get their vision restored and become useful citizens.

According to the president AST, there is a significant disparity between supply and demand of cornea in Pakistan and throughout the world, with corneal blindness accounting for up to 15 per cent of all cases of blindness. He urged the masses to donate corneas, pointing out that in the previous thirty years, only two people had donated corneas, and people were reluctant to do so for various reasons.

He informed the media representatives that Americans provide corneal donations for Pakistani patients because residents are reluctant to volunteer for this charitable endeavour. According to him, in August 2018, the first-ever eye bank was formed at the trust’s Rawalpindi premises with the assistance of the American organisation Eversight. There, individuals can submit their wills to donate corneas.

He added that because corneal donations in the country are so few, 53 per cent of eye patients lack access to donated corneas. As a result, corneas are needed to be imported from the USA and Sri Lanka. A cornea is one of the simplest tissues to transplant because the donor and the recipient do not need to match. He said it is a bloodless tissue that absorbs oxygen straight from the atmosphere. He went on to say that corneas from the elderly can be removed and transplanted into the eyes of much younger people.

According to Rehmat Khan, the Al-Shifa Trust has begun corneal transplants at its Sukkar hospital in addition to its Rawalpindi facility. In Sukkar Hospital, 50 corneal transplants have been completed successfully to date at no cost. Eighty per cent of all surgeries performed at the Al-Shifa eye hospitals in Rawalpindi, Sukkar, Kohat, Muzaffarabad, and Chakwal are free of charge. So far, the trust has performed over one million different eye surgeries.