Rural Eye Banking Workshop

The Rural Eye Bank Workshop to promote the eye donation in rural area was held on 22nd November 2009. The concept to reach out to rural area was thought of for the first time by Col. M. Deshpande, Chief Medical Director, H. V. Desai Eye Hospital and Mr. N. P. Pandya, President of PBMA, Pune. After contacting willing people in different areas we invited a group of social worker, eye surgeons and general practitioners from Beed, Narayangaon, Sangamner, Malegaon, Nevasa, Nandurbar, Udgir, Usmanabad, and Pune District. Almost 20 people attended the workshop. Dr. Seema Jagdale, Dr. Shilpa Joshi, Dr. Pranav More and Mr. Satish Kurpad conducted scientific workshop and gave practical demonstration. The delegates also performed corneal scleral rim removal on preserved eye balls in wet lab session. They were recruited in H. V. Desai Eye Hospital eye bank and were issued kits containing storage media, instruments and thermos needed for donor tissue preservation.
There is need for 3 lakh eye balls per year we only collect 30,000 in our country. Dr. Harish Saxsena stressed the need, Mr. Kumarbhai Shah and Dr. Raut from Narayangaon participated in this workshop. A success of such workshop would be held in future to promote rural awareness and getting eye donations.