Karnataka   

Bringing light into the lives of people

Helping others: Gangadhara Rao and his wife K. Manorama who have donated their bodies for medical research.

MYSORE: He is 83 years old, but his resolve to bring ‘light’ in the lives of visually impaired persons and educate people on body donation has not diminished. His two-decade-long single-handed mission to change the people’s opinion on eye donation drew the attention of the government, which helped him in popularising the noble cause.

K. Gangadhara Rao, who retired from the Central Excise 23 years ago, has been relentlessly spreading awareness on eye and body donation.

He takes up door-to-door campaigns, distribution of pamphlets and holds interactions with people on eye and body donation. “I was labelled insane in the beginning, but the people later understood the importance of my campaign,” Mr. Rao said.

Although the intensity of his campaign may have reduced to some extent owing to aging and his poor health, Mr. Rao, who along with his wife K Manorama is living with his daughter in Kollegal, has continued his campaign with his articles on the issue and correspondence with the organisations and people working to popularise eye and body donation.

The octogenarian, who and his wife have donated their bodies for medical research, has come with a suggestion to the government — introduce the scheme “Nationalisation of Dead” — to alleviate the sufferings of visually impaired persons and the people in need of organs. “Under this scheme, legislation should be formulated for compulsory recovery of cornea and organs from dead bodies to save lives,” he says.

Though the “revolutionary” scheme may not appear practical, the scheme, perhaps by 2020, will draw importance, he observed. “The Government can start working on the scheme to understand its finer points and its larger significance,” says Mr. Rao, whose crusade for an eye bank in Mysore paid off in the early 1990s.

Quoting a medical report, Mr. Rao, who appealed for the establishment of organ banks in the government hospitals in the State, says 17 lives could be saved by transplants from a single donor. Kidney, heart, liver, pancreas, spleen, bone marrow and skin graft could be transplanted from dead bodies within a specified period.

“Eye donation or body donation is not impossible. What it needs is devotion and determination. The resolve should come from the heart,” Mr Rao said, describing legal hurdles in removing cornea within a specified period, superstition, ignorance and illiteracy as obstacles in popularising the noble cause in the country.

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