Eye Donation Awareness Fortnight being organized at PGIMER, with a great zeal
As the nation observes the 37th National Eye donation fortnight, the campaign for it also kick-started at the PGIMER, Chandigarh with a great zeal. The fortnight was inaugurated with release of balloons jointly by Chief Guest Prof Vivek Lal, Director, PGIMER and Prof SS Pandav, Head, Advanced Eye Centre and Shri Satish Bhaskar, President, Lions Club Central. The function was also attended by the Cornea faculty of the Advanced Eye Centre comprising of Prof AK Jain, Prof Amit Gupta, Dr Chintan, Dr Parul Chawla, Dr Sonam, Dr Anchal and Sh Sanjeev Gupta and other members of Lions Club central, Chandigarh besides other staff of Advanced Eye Centre, PGIMER, Chandigarh.
National Eye Donation Fortnight is a 15 days campaign celebrated every year by Govt. of India wherein health institutes and other stake holders are encouraged to campaign for mass public awareness for eye donation and to motivate citizens to pledge their eyes after death. The celebration of National Eye Donation Fortnight is going on successfully since 1985.
At present, around 1.1 million people are corneal blind in India and current annual transplant number in the country is 25000- 30000. In PGIMER, around 2800 patients are waiting for their corneal transplantation but the hospital gets only 600-700 corneas every year. The objective of this fortnight is to create mass public awareness and to bridge the gap between the demand and supply of cornea.
In this year, a lecture series is being organized for eye donation in schools, colleges and public places for public awareness. In addition, painting competition, article writing competition and other activities are being organized in schools on eye donation and the winners will be felicitated at Advanced Eye Centre, PGI, Chandigarh. Besides this, messages of eye donation is being displayed at prominent places including religious places with collaboration of Lions club central, Chandigarh for sensitization of general public regarding this noble cause.
