Eye Bank seeking law on cornea transplants

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Eye Bank is seeking the establishment of a law which will allow immediate cornea transplantation from unidentified corpses.

Siti Maemunah Alamsjah Ratuprawiranegara, the chairperson of the non-governmental organization, told a hearing of the House Commission VIII on health affairs here yesterday that such a law would help meet the domestic cornea demand. "We're short of corneas," she said.

The existing law on health, issued in 1992, allows the collection of organs from unidentified corpses. However, there are articles in the law which stipulate that transplants be conducted at least two days after a person's death, just in case the individual's relatives appear and claim the body.

Meanwhile, "corneas can only survive for no longer than six hours," if not removed from the body, she said.

Some 1.5 million Indonesians suffer from blindness, but only 1.5 of them have been helped through cornea transplants, she said.

The eye bank's deputy chairman, Bondan Herman, said Indonesia is dependent on imported corneas. The country used to import 200 corneas from Sri Lanka every year for US$100 per cornea. He said that a foundation in the Netherlands paid 75 percent of the price.

In 1994, Sri Lanka raised the price to US$200. Since the Netherlands' foundation refused the increase, Indonesia stopped the import altogether, he said.

"In 1995, there weren't any transplants using imported corneas," he said.

This year, Indonesia started importing corneas again, this time with the help of a United-States based foundation, The Dessert. Around 100 corneas have been bought so far.

Meanwhile, the Eye Bank is accelerating its effort to increase domestic supply of corneas. It has so far registered 22,500 people willing to donate their corneas upon their deaths.

"The problem is, 80 percent of our potential donors are young people under the age of 40," he added. "That means we'll have a much longer time to wait for the cornea supply to be available."

The Eye Bank is the only body approved by the government to handle cornea donations since the country proclaimed blindness as a national disaster in 1968. Currently, it has 22 branches across the country.

Yesterday's hearing was also attended by other non- governmental organizations actively involved in the problem of blindness, including representatives of the U.S.-based Helen Keller foundation, Rotary Club, Lions Club, as well as the Dharmais foundation, which are among the Eye Bank's major financial donors. (01)