Siliguri: After a long wait, finally, cornea grafting facility and work of setting up an eye bank are about to begin at North Bengal Medical College and Hospital (NBMCH). If everything goes well, these facilities will begin from January 17.
Anwar Ali, Nodal Officer of National Programme for Control of Blindness and Deputy Chief Medical Officer of Health-2 of Darjeeling district (CMOH) said this after his recent visit to NBMCH.
He said: “Infrastructural work has been completed for cornea grafting at NBMCH. A list of recipients waiting for grafting is also being prepared. As per the instructions given by the State Health Department, we are going to sign a MOU with Greater Lions Eye Hospital in Siliguri. The state nodal officer of this project will visit the hospital on January 17 and the service of cornea grafting will begin with one cornea which will be brought from eye bank of Greater Lions Eye Hospital.”
Cornea grafting, also known as Corneal Transplantation, is a surgical procedure where a damaged or diseased cornea is replaced by donated corneal tissue.
Cornea grafting has not been started in North Bengal yet, as no government hospital has eye bank. As a result, there were no facilities to store corneas for those who were willing to donate eye or corneas after death.
“We will build a network to overcome these obstacles. The work will be done jointly with Greater Lions Eye Hospital. They are running an eye bank, by collecting the eyes and corneas from dead bodies. Also, we will start the work of setting up an eye bank at NBMCH,” Anwar Ali further added.
According to the authorities of NBMCH, there will be teams of NBMCH. These teams will be formed with health workers and nursing staff who will motivate people to donate eyes after death. They will collect the corneas of donors.
Incidentally, this service was supposed to start during the period of left front. Mobile vans and teams were kept to collect corneas. But due to some reason, the service could not be started.