Entire village donates eyes

SNV Sudhir

Bhimavaram (Vizianagaram), July 4: A remote village, Bhimavaram in thisdistrict might put many a philanthropists to shame. The 450 semi-literatefamilies of the village have pledged their eyes to the sightless, enmasse, proving that no matter how little one has, could give the world tosomeone after the death. At the time when the organ donation still didn’tpickup in the urban areas and cadaver donors in scarce in the country,these villagers stand by their word and voluntarily inform the doctors ofthe nearby Operation Eyesight Lions Eye hospital and eye bank of Garividiwhenever a death occurs in their village to take the cornea pair, whichhas to be taken out within hours of death. “It’s a very strange thing to happen in villages where people havedifferent opinions, apprehensions, superstitions and ‘blind beliefs’,misconceptions. But somehow everyone in Bhimavaram en masse filled thepledge forms to donate eyes after death. Initially we didn’t take themserious as with spot enthusiasm some persons sign the forms and laterreject when we go to collect the eyes after death as we have seen manycases. But this village is totally different. They inform us wheneverthere’s a death and some villagers help us in convincing the relatives ofthe deceased if they get any second thought” said the medicalsuperintendent of the eye hospital, Dr Sunil Kumar Thangaraj.It started in 2005 when as part of the eye hospital’s mission to createawareness in the rural areas on eye donation, the hospital team bumped onto this village and showed a short film on eye donation, which can changethe life of the sightless. The film showed about the misconceptions of eyedonations, procedure of taking out the cornea from the dead body. Thisinspired the headman of the village Pericharla Sanyasi Appala Raju, 65, alocal landlord whose words are diktats to the entire village. And verysoon he could convince the entire village and all duly signed the pledgeforms. Its not just signing the forms. Till now villagers donated 12 pairsof eyes from the village since the campaign launched in this remotevillage. Death of the persons suffering with prolonged illness and othercomplaints are never informed. “Eyes are life to the human beings.And one cannot imagine life withoutvision which made me infuse the feeling of eye donation among ourvillagers and the result is that the legacy would continue and we willpass it onto the next generations” said the headman. The OE Lions eyehospital and eye bank is the only hospital in the rural Andhra Pradeshdoing cornea transplantation. Dr Sunil observed that the corneacollection was not up to the demand in the two districts of north Andhra.He said at any given time there will be minimum of 300 persons on thewaitlist for cornea transplantation from these areas. “According tolatest statistics of the Eye Bank Association of India around 4 lakh eyepairs are needed per year and 8-9 million deaths occurred last year butonly 25,000 pairs could be collected which shows the big gap. This is alllack of awareness about the eye donation and commitment by the donorswhich this village has in abundant” said Dr Sunil.“ I used to see Appamma, a young girl in our village who was born blindand how she suffered in life which inspired me to donate eyes. I saw theshort film and signed the pledge and my mother in law’s eyes was the firstto be donated when she died in 2005 end,” said Mudunuri Appala Raju. Whenasked another villager Penmatsa Narasimha Raju about how do they feeleverything about eye donation, he said “Its very simple. We inform thedoctors they come and cover the dead body with a cloth and take out thecornea from the dead. It’s as simple as that. It all finishes in just10minutes”.“Our relatives stopped me calling the doctors after my wife died sayingthat if the dead take a rebirth they will born with no vision if the eyesare donated after death. I ruled out all those arguments and called thedoctors. They came and took my wife’s eyes. One should live and also givelife to someone after death, which is possible only by eye donation” saidMamidi Appala Naidu, who faced ire from his relatives at the time of hiswife’s death. But he was determined to donate the eyes. Some villagersthink that the dead will not come into their dreams if their eyes weretaken out. And if they come, they would curse for removing eyes. “But tillnow I didn’t got any such dream. Its all rubbish. Even I used to believethis gossip earlier but not now,” said Pydinaidu. Cornea of Naidu’s mother was given to the doctors. Another unique featureof the village is that there is no scope for politics. They do not castany vote to elect the president of their panchayat. All the villagers sittogether and select a candidate unanimously. Since 1951 they have beenpracticing this without affiliation to any political parties.Perhaps this unanimity led them to take up the unique social cause withoutany hindrance.