Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society
Logo of the Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society
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| Formation | 1961 |
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| Type | NGO |
| Purpose | Donating human eyes, bones and amnion to patients in need |
| Headquarters | Colombo, Sri Lanka |
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Region served
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Sri Lanka and around the world |
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Medical Director
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Dr. M. H. S. Cassim |
| Website | http://www.eyedonation.slt.lk/ |
Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society (Sinhalese: ශ්රී ලංකා අක්ෂිදාන සංගමය, Tamil: இலங்கை கண் தானச்சங்கம்) is a non-governmental organization involved in donating human eyes and tissues for transplantation. It serves patients in need both in Sri Lanka and around the world. The society is a non-profit organization and provides the organs free of charge, except for a small fee on processing and delivery.
Deshabandu Dr. Hudson Silva, the founder and inaugural president of the society, launched the first campaign to collect corneas in Sri Lanka in 1958 as a medical student. The first set of corneas he received in 1959 were stored in his home refrigerator at Wijerama Mawatha in Colombo. Together with his wife, Irangani de Silva, he founded the Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society in 1961. In 1964 they sent their first overseas donation to Singapore; the corneas were packed in ice in a tea thermos and hand-carried during the flight.
Since then, conditions have improved and the organization has provided 60,000 corneas for corneal transplantation, for patients in 57 countries. Almost 900,000 people have signed up to donate their eyes through the society after their death. The society receives about 3,000 corneas a year and more than 2,000 are shipped abroad. The most prominent recipient country has been Pakistan (where the traditional Islamic law requires bodies to be buried whole and intact), with over 20,000 corneas.Egypt and Japan have received over 8,000 and 6,000 corneas, respectively. In Sri Lanka itself, citizens have first access to free corneas.
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