Limited Sight:

Cornea transplants can change the lives of thousands of sight impaired people. But a severe shortage of donor tissue is hampering their chances.  One Western Cape eye specialist used to do about ten transplants per month.  That figure has dwindled to one transplant every three months. He has forty patients on his waiting list.  The national waiting list stands at 10-thousand.    One solution is to import corneas, but at 14-thousand Rand per cornea, it's out of reach of state patients.

South Africa's five eye banks are the only such facilities on the continent.  According to one doctor the continued shortage of donor tissue could lead to their closure.  The reasons for the shortage are varied; and increase in HIV/Aids has contributed to a shortage of healthy tissue over the past few years.  However in the last five months the shortage has become acute because of new rules and regulations at state mortuaries.

On April 1st 2006 oversight of the mortuaries, which used to be run by the SAPS, were placed under the department of health.  Since then information about patients (deceased) are treated as confidential.  Co-ordinators for the various tissue and eye-banks have no access to the contact details of the families of potential donors. The information can only be obtained from the police; however the co-ordinators names have not yet been supplied to the police by the department of health.

In "Limited Sight" producer Hanti Schrader investigates the problems and possible solutions of the cornea dilemma.