The critical need to harvest human cornea for eye transplant surgeries is evident by the fact that the Union Health Ministry observes the period between September 25 to August 8th as ‘Eye donation fortnight’ culminating on the 8th of August being observed as ‘eye donation day’. A period when it undertakes nationwide activities towards creating awareness on eye donation. As an institution in the forefront of creating awareness on eye donation almost since its inception Sankara Nethralaya leveraged the power and passion of youth power to spread the message of the fortnight, Senior doctors and optometrists and personnel from the eye bank joined hundreds of NSS students from the women’s Christian college and Loyola college espousing the cause of eye donation by holding aloft placards with messages to the effct and raising their voice as they marched and stood as a human chain. Speaking on the ocaasion Dr S Gayatri Senio Coirnea Fellow and Dr N.Radhika emphasized that corneal issues were the next biggest cause for blindness after cataract and glaucoma and the need for massive cornea harvesting. Describing eye donation as a true spirit of giving Dr Radhika added that corneal transplant was the most successful of all organ transplants
Making a surprise prsense veteran ophthalmologist and founder of the LV Prasad Eye hospital the legendary Dr Gulapalli N Rao hailed Dr SS Badrinath as the creator of a worldclass eye hospital and his wife as the movong force behind him, the distinguished doctor lauded Dr Radhika and Dr Prema as outstanding examples off exhibiting the three h’s namely heart,hea and hand. Terming the large gathering studentsa assembled as the generation which has the power o change the world The veteran doctor made a fervent appeal to them to spread awareness on eye donation adding that if each student could convince one family in one year, India would become a nation which exports cornea.