“One eye donation can literally give two people back their sight. I think we all know what the impact in our lives of having good sight is. The impact of this type of donation is actually massive.”

These are the words of Dr Graeme Pollock OAM – Director of the Lions Eye Donation Service, Centre for Eye Research Australia – one of Australia’s largest providers of donated eye tissue for transplant and medical research. Dr Pollock helped establish the service 30 years ago, this year.  

Based at Melbourne’s Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, the Lions Eye Donation Service is an eye bank that establishes consent for donation, coordinates and performs donation surgery, and evaluates and distributes donated corneas and other eye tissue.

In this fascinating episode, Dr Pollock talks eye donation, corneal transplants, and shares some wonderful anecdotes, including one about a patient whose corneas were estimated to be at least 120 years old, having had her transplant in 1953 from a donor who was then aged in his 70s.     

For someone with a damaged cornea, a corneal transplant is often their last hope of restoring vision. Like organ donation, this sight-saving operation is only possible thanks to the decision of a donor and their family.  

Dr Pollock says, while the service primarily allocates donated eye tissue for transplant to patients in Victoria and Tasmania, they also send eye tissue around Australia and even to New Zealand, when needed.

While the eye bank has no shortage of donations, Dr Pollock acknowledges that for some people, the idea of eye donation can be a challenge. Asked why this might be, Dr Pollock says, “I think people are reluctant sometimes, and it’s probably because when we relate to someone, we often relate to them through their eyes. We know what they look like and we have an emotional engagement with them and with that person.”

Dr Pollock says the impact of donation on recipient’s lives is remarkable, as is the success rate of transplantation. In 2020, there were approximately 2,500 corneal transplants Australia-wide; 530 of those took place in Melbourne. There were almost 1,500 corneal donors in Australia last year.

More Australians are alive today because of organ and tissue donation. To register to be an organ and tissue donor, visit donatelife.gov.au – it only takes a minute.

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