Eye Bank

There are currently an estimated 12 million blind people in India. 6.8 million of these suffer from corneal blindness with vision less than 6/60 in at least one eye, and of these, about 1 million have bilateral corneal blindness. If the present trend continues, it is expected that the number of corneally blind individuals in India will increase to 10.6 million by 2020.

Of these at least 3 million can be benefited by corneal transplantation. Thus, to effectively meet the ever growing demand, we need around 150,000 corneal transplants to be performed every year.

SRU Eye Bank

The Eye bank in Sri Ramachandra Medical College & Research Institute started in September 24 1996 in the Department of Ophthalmology with the following objectives:

• Promoting awareness on eye donation education and motivating public parties on this noble cause.
• For obtaining better quality Corneas we have a hospital cornea retrival program (HCRP) where the relatives of deceased are motivated for eye donation.
• To bridge the gap between demand and supply of good quality Corneas to obtain letter results in Keratoplasty.
• To train junior residents in Enucleation and corneal buttoning
• To conduct frequent eye donation education program for paramedical and strengthen our support.

Exclusive Facilities

• 24 hour around-the-clock service.
• Dedicated phone line (24 Hours) 044-24765515/30, Ext. 8219, 8152,
• Structured procedure for procurement, and making corneal button under strict aseptic precautions under laminar flow.
• Evaluation of donor tissue by Slit Lamp, Specular Microscopy.
• Appropriate serological screening of the donor blood sample.
• Preservation in storage media.
• A register is maintained for the patients awaiting corneal transplant, and they are called when an eye is available

Activities

• Enucleation procedure is being performed by our senior postgraduates under sterile precautions within our campus and also at Donor’s residence.
• Penetrating keratoplasty(PK) as well as lamellar keratoplasty(LK) is routinely performed. Patients with severe corneal ulcers are treated with therapeutic keratoplasty(TPK).
• The collected eyes are also used for research and training purposes.
• Every year the eye bank conducts national eye donation fortnight celebrations from 25^th august to 8^th September. During this period an awareness campaign in the form of exhibits and posters are displayed in the hospital campus. Brief talks about eye donation are addressed to public routinely.
• Eye bank manager also addresses and creates awareness to all camp patients regarding eye donation (Ariyalur, Perambalur, Punnai Nagar, Trichy, Kadayanallur (Tirunelveli), Thiruvarur, Guruvayur, Thirukovilur , Melmalayanur and Rasipuram).
• We also motivate to pledge eyes among the general public, a total number of pledges collected till date accounts to 34635.