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This past summer Dr.’s Mark Wellemeyer and Dasa Gangadhar took a week off from their busy ophthalmic practices to travel to Tashkent Uzbekistan to follow up on the training that Dr. Botir Kalankhodjaev received on his visit to the US and to perform corneal transplantation surgery along side Dr. Kalankhodjaev. During this visit, 24 corneal transplant surgeries were performed on patients ranging in age from 14 to 80 who all had one thing in common, they all had a form of blindness which could be cured with a corneal transplant.
“The trip was an overwhelming success” said Scott Bryan, Executive Director. “It’s difficult to find words to explain how it feels when you remove the patch from someone’s eye the day after surgery and they just start crying because they are able to see again.” Because of the success of this trip, the government is implementing steps through legislative chance and importation of corneas so that more of those who are blind can be given the change for restored vision. “This is significant”, said Scott Bryan, “because in order for this program to be successful on the scale to help the country as a whole you need the support of the government. With the success of our trip, we earned just that!”
If you would like more information on our project—Operation Restore Sight—or would like to know how you could help give the gift of sight, please call the Wichita Eye Foundation at 316-688-3937
This past year, the eye bank has grown from a medium sized eye bank to a very large eye bank with the addition of tissue from Midwest Transplant Network (MTN). Last year, the Wichita Eye Bank entered into an agreement to process all ocular tissue recovered by MTN, our area organ procurement organization. “This type of relationship has never been done,”, said Scott Bryan, Executive Director, “so there are a lot of organizations out there watching to see how this works. Actually, I am surprised this has not been done in the past since it makes perfect sense. It utilizes each organization strengths to benefit the communities that we serve. Simply put, by focusing our efforts on the areas of the donation process we are the strongest at, in this case our strength lies in processing the tissue recovered, we are able to provide the highest quality tissue available. The ultimate benefit to this type of relationship between OPO and Eye Bank is that we are able to provide the level of service and quality that benefits everyone involved from Hospitals to Donor Families, and Recipients.
Total Corneas procured - 820 Unfortunately not every cornea procured can be used for transplantation. Each cornea is examined and tested in order to provide safe, high quality tissue for transplantation and occasionally some tissue has to be deferred due to infection or corneal evaluation but every effort is expended to make sure that all transplantable tissue is used appropriately. Mid Continent Eye bank would like to thank the generous donor families who make it possible to bring the gift of sight to so many people!
Ports of call:
All with the Cruise for Sight. By booking a cruise with our group a donation will be made to the Mid-Continent Eye Bank for every cabin booked. Prices:
Cruises can be booked by calling Terry Major at AAA Travel at 1-866-222-6277. Hope to Sea you there.
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Join
us on a group cruise this December 7-14. Set sail with Royal Caribbean
from Galveston, TX for 7 days of paradise. 
© 2003 Mid-Continent Eye Bank