Kenneth Ofoma
13 November 2009
Abakaliki — An eye specialist and Secretary of Rotary Eye Institute, India, Viral K. Purohit has urged Nigerians to form the habit of donating the eyes of their dead relations to hospitals so that millions of Nigerians who have eye problems can have their eyes replaced instead of going blind.
Speaking to newsmen yesterday during a free eye surgery progamme tagged "Save the Sight", being sponsored by the Nigeria Independent Petroleum Company (NIPCO) Plc at Ebonyi State University Teaching Hospital (EBSUTH), Abakaliki, Purohit said that in developed parts of the world eye donation is as rampant as the donation of other body parts like heart, kidney and blood.
Purohit who is the head of the medical team, explained that unlike other body parts, which could stop functioning immediately a person dies; the eyes could still remain useful eight hours after the death of a person, and therefore could be removed and preserved either by getting the consent of the donor before he dies or the deceased's relations donating same for the sake of humanity.
The Ophthalmologist expressed alarm at the rate many Nigerians are going blind even when their eye conditions could easily be remedied by timely intervention, noting that based on turn out of people at the teaching hospital and the other states they had visited so far including Adamawa and Kano, he was convinced that a large chunk of the nation's population is going blind.
"When I came to Nigeria I came with human eyes donated by people at India. Over there we teach people right from childhood the need to donate eyes just like you donate blood. God made it possible that after death, the heart, lung and limbs etc cannot work again but the eye can work, and remains useful for eight hours... when I was in India, I usually collect 1, 800 eyeballs yearly from donors.
"But due to superstition people in Africa will say that the dead person will not be able to see in heaven if you remove his eyes... what sense does it make, to throw away precious eyeballs to the soil when millions of people could be prevented from going blind through Cornea transplant... God in his infinite wisdom knows why the eyes can stay for eight hours after death because there is no factory that manufactures eyes, "he said.
He said that out of 12,000 eye patients screened by his team, they had successfully carried out more than 160 surgeries in two days and hopes to carry out not less than 500 at the end of the five-day programme.
gtrEarlier during the flag off ceremony, the Chairman of NIPCO, Chief (Dr.) Bestman Anekwe stated that the exercise was part of the corporate social responsibility of the company, stressing that in the two previous programmes at Kano and Adamawa states, no fewer than 1,500 eye patients had surgical operation for Glaucoma, Cataract and Prerygium while over 3000 with minor eye ailments also benefited from the free eye care scheme.
He said that NIPCO, based in Lagos, is a downstream operator in the nation's oil and gas industry floated by scores of Independent fuel marketers with the support of a core investor -Pure Bond Limited of the United Kingdom.
"The programme in context today tagged SAVE THE SIGHT is primarily aimed at addressing the eye ailments of people across the country taking into consideration the role of good eyesight in the life of any human being".
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