Objective:

Eye banking involves identifying appropriate deceased donors, obtaining consent from the donor family, collecting tissue and assessing and processing. Banked tissues can then be distributed to trained eye surgeons. The goal is to provide the best-quality, disease-free tissue for corneal transplantation to restore sight to the needlessly corneal blind.

Details:

Successful eye banking requires appropriate national and state/provincial legislation to support organ and tissue transplantation. These programs can be culturally sensitive and also require a basic health care system with appropriate infrastructure. Health care professionals including trained managers, technicians, counsellors and surgeons are all key to a successful eye banking program. In addition, capital investments in equipment must be made specific to an eye bank lab. Governance policies with a focus on quality and outcome assessment with a not-for-profit approach are necessary. This ensures that all patients have access to this sight-saving procedure, regardless of financial resources.