Blind cancel surgery over rising costs
JAKARTA (JP): The sharply rising cost of eye transplants has prompted many blind people who were intending to undergo surgery to cancel the operations, Iding Kusnadi, the secretary of the Jakarta chapter of the Indonesian Eye Bank, said yesterday.
Iding said that as a result of the economic crisis the transplant cost almost doubled from Rp 3 million (US$230) to Rp 5 million.
The substantial jump was caused mainly by the fact that most of the equipment and medicines used in the transplants were imported, he said at a ceremony for the handover of tokens of appreciation to 23 eye donors' heirs at the City Hall.
The annual ceremony was held in conjunction with the commemoration of the 53rd anniversary of Indonesia's Independence Day on Aug. 17, Iding said.
"Many patients due to undergo eye transplants were forced to cancel their plans as soon as they learned the cost has substantially jumped," he said without giving details on the number of blind people canceling their transplants.
Iding just said the number of people on the waiting list for eye transplants was 184.
According to data from the bank, the number of eye donors in Jakarta during the last 30 years is 12,569, of which half had already been donated.
Iding said the donors consisted of local people and some in the United States.
"We also have donors from Australia and the Netherlands, but their number is small. We used to import eyes from Sri Lanka but we can no longer afford to as they had to be purchased in U.S. dollars," he said
Iding said that the existing number of eye donors was very small compared to the city population of about 9.7 million.
He said that the low number was caused mainly by people's belief that a dead person should be buried intact and donating part of his/her body would cause an imperfection.
"We find it difficult to reconcile the belief. But I think that when people die what should be complete is their deeds not bodies," he said.
He also said that 1,912 people had undergone eye transplants with the help of the eye bank over the last 30 years. (ind)