Tamil Nadu - Chennai   

Son transplants mother’s corneas

Tahira Agarwal

CHENNAI: In addition to performing the last rites for his mother, this son also fulfilled her last wish personally — eye donation. Amar Agarwal, ophthalmic surgeon, removed the corneas his mother Tahira Agarwal had willed to be donated, and transplanted them on to two other persons bringing sight to them. On behalf of his ophthalmologist mother, he helped perform her last medical intervention to help those without sight.

Dr. Tahira Agarwal passed away on April 13 after a brief illness. She was 78. She had requested that her corneas be donated after her death and in keeping with these wishes, her son performed the transplantation procedure early Tuesday morning, finding the courage to do it despite his grief.

An ophthalmic surgeon by training, she co-founded Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital with her husband in 1957. According to her family, some of the achievements to her credit include introducing cryosurgery in treatment of cataracts and being the first to perform refractive surgery using a cryolathe.

She has also played an important role in propagating awareness of eye donation. As an attempt to handle the shortage of corneas for transplantation, she established links with the International Eye Bank, Sri Lanka, way back in 1974, in order to get eyes for India from that country.

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