March is eye bank month. Since eye banks were founded in the '40s, people have been asked to be eye donors. Thanks to the medical success of cornea transplants, eye donations can be used to restore sight to those who have lost their vision due to corneal disease or injury.
The cornea has been called the front window of the eye. If it becomes clouded or scarred, vision is impaired. Sight can be restored by replacing the defective cornea with a healthy one from a donor eye. Synthetic ones have not yet proved successful.
It is a sad fact, however, that with the improved surgical techniques and with 50 years of eye-banking experience, there are not enough donors to provide the corneas for those in need of a transplant.
One does not have to have perfect vision to be a donor. Only a transmittable disease would prevent donation. Infants to the elderly can give sight to another. Informing your next of kin of your desire to do so will make it more likely to happen when that critical time comes. Physicians are reluctant to remove corneal tissue or other organs without consent of next of kin. For more information, call 800-232-4384.
