Two Samaritans have their eye on a noble cause

As part of an ongoing eye donation awareness week that started on August 25, two women are working towards influencing people to donate their eyes after their death so that the blind can regain vision.

Kusum Ben Vira (60) wants to ensure that India has no visually-impaired people and has taken up the task of creating a bank for eyeballs and skin needed primarily for burn patients. Varsha Ved (56) is the other woman on a mission to spread awareness about eye donation. A senior counsellor with Eye Bank Coordination and Research Centre, Ms Ved meets the relatives of deceased patients in hospitals and talks to them about cornea donation. She lost her vision in 2000 and regained it after two years. Following this, she gave up her former job and started counselling and encouraging people to donate their eyes after death or those of their relatives.

Ms Vira has collected 14,244 eyeballs from deceased people in 19 years, and this has helped 4,000 people regain their eyesight. She has also collected skin from more than 8,000 people in two years, with approximately 95 per cent of it having been used for burn patients.

Ms Ved lost her eyesight in 2000 after her eyes were harmed due to working continuously on computers for many years.

After she received a cornea for her left eye in 2002 and another cornea for her right eye in 2003, it took almost six months for her new cornea to adapt to light. She then gave up her former job and started working as a full-time counsellor at Bachuali Eye Bank, which is associated with all state and civic-run hospitals.

Ms Ved said, “I was once blind and now I can see, so I know how difficult losing one’s vision can be. So after regaining my eyesight, I have taken a vow since 2003 to convince people to donate their cornea.”

Ms Vira said: “On August 15, 1997 I pledged my support to the ‘Andha Pan Bharat Chhodo’ campaign with Tarun Mitra Mandal, an NGO working towards this purpose.”