Eye donation awareness – A public perspective

Background: A large number of patients in India suffer from corneal blindness. [1-3] The corneas procured from a deceased person’s eye donation can be used to give sight to these patients. [1,2] Despite approximately 97,00,000 deaths/year reported from India, only around 50,000 eye donations/per year are made. [1,3,4] Instead of asking the experts about the reasons for such low statistics, we go to the streets and interview the common public to try to understand how to solve this matter. Purpose: To create awareness among the public about eye donation and to come up with solutions suggested by the common people regarding how to improve eye donation in India. Synopsis: We interviewed the general public to understand their level of awareness about eye donation and observed that many people are unaware of it. We asked people for their opinions on the reasons for fewer eye donations in India. People suggested that it was a lack of awareness, fear and stigma among the public, stubbornness of people, misconceptions and myths that prevent people from donating eyes, and general apathy in society. We asked the public for their suggestions on how to increase eye donations in our country. They came up with the following suggestions: to put more effort into creating awareness about eye donation, to educate people about this issue, especially counseling them on time, etc., We share in the video the essential information all people should know about eye donation. We see that with correct understanding, many people are willing to make eye donations. We raise a concern to the general public if they have ever considered donating eyes after death. Highlights: We present an interactive video, which is one of its kind, where the general public is the teacher and also the student, and try to bring out the essential aspects of eye donation, which the common person should know, thus aiming to increase its awareness among the people. Video link: https://youtu.be/i51H7WCAODg