Activities : HCRP

Retreival of Corneas is one of the core activities of an eye bank.

Eye Bank Association of India recorded that the highest yield of good quality corneal tissue came from the Multi-Speciality hospitals. This started the HCRP – Hospital Cornea Retrieval Programme to concentrate on deaths that occur at hospitals and encourage eye donations using a combined method of motivation and grief counseling.

The advantages of HCRP are availability of medical history of the donor, availability of tissues from younger individuals, reduction in time interval between death and corneal excision and cost effectiveness.

Ramayamma International Eye Bank, Hyderabad conducts training programmes for Eye Donation Councellors (EDC’s) and drushti daan’s EDC’s are trained there.

These trained Eye Donation Counselors counsel and motivate a family to donate the eyes of their deceased relation, accept pledges & issue donor cards to individuals who wish to donate their eyes in the future, create public awareness by answering questions and distributing pamphlets eye donation/eye banking.

"drushti daan" adopted the HCRP with the initial help of ORBIS and Eye Bank Association of India.

In 2005 an MOU was executed with the Kalinga Hospital, Bhubaneswar, and Eye Donation Councellors are posted there to promote eye donation

In May 2007 permission was granted by the Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Orissa, for drushti daan to post their Eye Donation Counselors and conduct  HCRP at the Capital Hospital, Bhubaneswar.

Our plans for the future see each and every multi specialty hospital / medical college in Bhubaneswar and the rest of Orissa having Eye donation Counselors working for eye donation.

So far 70% of our cornea procurement has been through HCRP. For further information please feel free to contact any of the members of drushti daan.