Times of India
1 July 2009
Jamnagar, India

Nine pairs of donated eyes were left untended by doctors of Guru Govind Singh (GG) Hospital here for 22 days.

The incident has come just 11 days after the same hospital earned heavy flak for branding and parading an HIV+ woman.

It took a delivery man, the media and close to 10 hours of goading for on-duty doctors to take cognizance of the situation at 2.30 am on Wednesday, only to find that the eyes were of no use anymore.

Tarachand Jain, president of Kutchhi Visha Oshwal Jain Mahajan in Bhuj, said, “For past 12 months, our trust has been running the eye donation drive and we have been sending donated pairs to several hospitals of the region, besides GG hospital. Never have we come across a situation like this before, as we take care to communicate properly.”

“The consignment was sent on June 6. But, no one from the ophthalmology department of GG hospital came to take delivery of the parcels,” said the local travel operator, who has been transporting these consignments. “At last we had to send our delivery man and he was asked to leave the boxes at the registration counter. The man delivered the nine parcels at 6 pm on Tuesday at the registration counter,” he said.

However, these parcels were neither checked nor lifted by the ophthalmology department. A local media person, who alerted the hospital authorities, said, “Despite my repeated reminders to them, the parcels remained untouched for over 10 hours. No one was bothered. At last, a doctor from the department came and took the boxes at 2.30 am.”

According to an explanation offered by superintendent of GG hospital Dr BD Gupta, “It was miscommunication. The organization which sent the delivered boxes did not inform us properly.” Gupta also blamed the delivery man for not taking a receipt, adding, “Once our staff spotted the boxes, we opened it to find them very old and not in a condition to use.”