November 2018 is Eye Donation Month, and Mid-America Transplant will be raising awareness about the vision-saving opportunities created through eye donation.
Eye Donation Month 2018 will focus on all the individuals who make the gift of sight possible. Cornea donor families, Cornea recipients, eye bank staff, funeral directors, medical examiners/coroners, and hospital administrators are the enduring champions for the millions of people around the world whose lives were transformed through cornea donation and transplantation.
- Mid-America Transplant's Eye Bank has distributed more than 500 corneas for vision-saving transplants this year in the United States.
*Data through September 30, 2018
- In 2017, 84,297 corneas were donated for transplant in the United States.
- Almost anyone can be a donor, regardless of vision, age, or past ocular health issues such as cataracts or laser vision correction.
- The transplants performed each year increase their recipients’ productivity and reduce their healthcare costs, contributing $6 billion in benefits to the U.S. healthcare system.
Find more statistics and facts on cornea donation here.
Supporting Eye Donation Month begins with registering to be an eye, organ, and tissue donor and sharing your decision with your family and loved ones. Register your decision to be a donor in the Medical ID tab of the iPhone Health app (iOS 10) or at RegisterMe.org.
During Eye Donation Month, Mid-America Transplant will promote cornea donation and transplantation awareness; encourage individuals to register as eye, organ, and tissue donors; honor donors and their families; and celebrate cornea recipients.
Follow Mid-America Transplant’s social media channels – Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – throughout the month of November for stories about those touched by cornea donation.
About Mid-America Transplant
Mid-America Transplant enables adults and children to receive lifesaving gifts through eye, organ and tissue donations. For more than 40 years, it has facilitated and coordinated organ and tissue donation, and now serves 84 counties covering eastern Missouri, southern Illinois and northeast Arkansas that together are home to 4.7 million people. It saves lives by providing expert and compassionate care for organ and tissue donors, recipients and families, and transforms the clinical processes required to recover and transplant organs and tissues. Mid-America Transplant was the first such organization in the U.S. to use an in-house operating room for organ recovery and pioneered innovative models of increasing donor registry enrollment to provide more organs and tissues to those in need. It is federally designated as one of 58 such organizations in the U.S., and is the first organ procurement organization to be recognized as a recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for Performance Excellence.
About the Eye Bank Association of America
The Eye Bank Association of America (EBAA), established in 1961, is the oldest transplant association in the nation and sets standards, provides education, and engages in advocacy to support eye donation, and cornea transplantation and research. EBAA has led the transplantation field with the establishment of medical standards for eye banking, and comprehensive training and certification programs for eye bank personnel. Over 90 member eye banks operate in the United States, Canada, and Asia. These eye banks made possible 84,297 sight-restoring corneal transplants in the United States in 2017. To learn more, visit www.restoresight.org.