HEALTH

Eyes: the best gift to offer mankind
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, May 4
“There are 1.25 million blind people in India and out of these 25 lakh suffer from corneal blindness. In India 80 to 90 lakh people die of natural death. If people change their attitude and beliefs and donate their eyes after death, all the visually impaired persons can see and there would be no one suffering from corneal blindness,” said Dr Ramesh, an opthalmologist, at the Civil Hospital in Jodhan Maansooran village. He has performed over 400 eye transplant operations. Dr Ramesh is in charge of a Rural Eye Bank, the first such bank in Asia. The bank is being run by non-government organisations and is registered with the Eye Bank Association of India, Hyderabad.

Dr Ramesh was giving information about corneal transplant and its treatment at a press conference organised at the Civil Hospital, Jodhan Mansoodan, near Ludhiana. He wanted media to play a vital role in educating the people to get rid of the taboos related with eye donation. Dr Ramesh said the corneal blindness cannot be cured and transplant is the only way to restore vision. Mostly children suffer from it. The main cause of corneal blindness is injury in the eye. In dairy farming, too, the use of acetic acid causes burn injuries which are generally neglected. Sometimes poor surgery can also cause injury to the cornea. He said that there are two programmes to retrieve cornea. One is active procurement scheme. Under this scheme the social or voluntary workers go to hospitals that have intensive care units or cancer wards. They persuade the relatives to donate the cornea when the death of the patient is imminent. The other way is to motivate people to donate cornea.

“The success rate of cornea transplant operation is 70 per cent. Some times the cornea is rejected by the body”, he added.

ADMINISTRATION

Register migrant labourers: DC
Our Correspondent

Fatehgarh Sahib, May 4
To curb the crime in the district, the district administration has launched a campaign to register the particulars of all the migrant labourers living in the district. Mr Vikas Partap, Deputy Commissioner, Fatehgarh Sahib, in an office order issued today, had directed all the factory owners, farmers and all those who had employed migrant labourers should immediately register their names and addresses in their respective police stations. He has further directed that before providing employment they should strictly verify their identity. He has also made it mandatory for the landlords to submit the photographs of their migrant tenants. It is worth mentioning that certain migrant labourers intruded in the house of a farmer at Nabipur village and killed his younger son and by injuring all the other family members, fled with the cash and jewellery.

Elaborating on the proposed plan, the Deputy Commissioner said it would be the responsibility of the employer to register the migrant labourers in the nearest police station, alongwith his complete address and biodata.