Eye Surgery in India

Eye transplant in India is a fairly common operation. Eye Transplant is a surgical procedure conducted to replace the diseased cornea of the patient with the donated cornea tissue or graft. During the procedure, a clear and healthy cornea is fixed in place of the opaque or cloudy cornea to restore lost vision in the patient. A clear cornea, thus, allows light rays toenter the eyes for a more distinct vision.

Eye transplant in India is a popular surgical procedure carried out in almost all major multispecialty eye hospitals and centers in the country. Foreign nationals suffering from complete or partial clouding of the cornea prefer to come to India because of many reasons, including affordability of medical treatment, the presence of advanced surgical infrastructure, availability of healthy cornea for transplant, and progressive technology for eye surgery.

Composition of Human Eye

Interestingly, an eye is composed of more than 2 million working parts, only 1/6th of the eye is exposed and of all the muscles in our body, the muscles that control our eyes are the most active. Also, each of our eyes have a blind spot in the retina, where the optic nerves attach to the eye. These blind spots are not at all photosensitive but we are not able to see these bind spots in our field of vision as both the eyes work together to compensate for the other’s blind spot.

International Accredited Hospitals

In addition, a majority of eye surgery hospitals in India are accredited by healthcare accreditation bodies such as Joint Commission International (JCI) and National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH) (affiliated to ISQua – International Society for Quality in Healthcare).

Growth of Eye Surgery Hospitals in India in the Past Decade

Going back into the past by a few decades, eye surgery in India was a rare possibility. One of the critical reasons was the unavailability of adequate relatives who would consent to the deceased donor individual’s wishes posthumously. People were always reluctant to donate the eyes of the deceased person because of appearance issues. But this outlook has changed tremendously in the last few decades.

In addition, the researchers invented a new technology a few years back that helps them remove the cornea from the eyes of any deceased donor without affecting the surrounding tissues. This further increased the availability of donor cornea sharply, thus making eye surgery in India more accessible.

Another major reason that attributed to the popularity of eye transplant in India across the globe is the low eye treatment cost in India. The cost of eye transplant in India is just a fraction of the total cost in the Western countries, including the US and the UK. Despite the low cost of eye transplant in India, there are no compromises concerning the quality of medical services, which are at par with International standards.