A Consultant Ophthalmologist and Cornea Surgeon at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Dr. Ogundipe Bade has urged Nigerians to donate their corneas while they are still alive so it can be harvested after their death for those who need it. He said this at an advocacy symposium on ‘Giving A Gift that Goes On Living’ which was held on August the 13 to commemorate the World Organ Donation Day Ogundipe said that the benefit of one donating his/her cornea is to help other people whose cornea has been damaged to restore their eyesight because the eyes of a dead person melts within two days after death and the best time to harvest the cornea after death is six hours except the body is kept in a refrigerator or embalmed in the mortuary.
He pointed out some of the challenges of getting people to donate their corneas include fear; most people are scared of donating their corneas because they feel the organs of their body will not be complete when they reincarnate. Some believe it is fetish and some also believe in reincarnation. They believe they will be reincarnated in the same body and organ they died with.
According to him, only two hundred transplants have been done in Nigeria and all of the corneas except four were imported because only few people in Nigeria are donating their corneas. The problem with imported corneas is that one might not get it as fast as expected. He further attested that one cornea can be used to treat three or four people if the Eye Bank is capable of splitting the tissue.
And 14 days is the lifespan of a cornea that has been harvested. The process of one donating their cornea involves one visiting an eye foundation, filling the necessary forms and telling his/her family about it so that once the person dies the family will contact the eye foundation to harvest it and then keep it in the Eye Bank, said Ogundipe. He said most of the cornea problems in Nigeria are due to infections.
Therefore what we need is to create awareness and educate people about organ donations. President of Transplant Association of Nigeria, Prof Olugbenga Awobusuyi encouraged everyone to participate in organ donation and be an organ donor because a single deceased individual can save the lives of eight other individuals and improve the conditions of many more. According to him, organ transplantation is done in a regulated environment and no professional will certify a patient dead for the purpose of organ transplantation because it is not primarily for that; it is primarily to determine whether the patient is dead or not so that the life support and expensive treatment can be stopped.
The Chairman of the Eye Bank for Restoring Sight in Nigeria, Festus Oshoba said that the organisation is collaborating and cooperating with the National Advisory Council for the Blind and other governmental and nongovernmental agencies to achieve their goals..
