The late Desabandhu Dr. Hudson Silva, Founder of the Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society (SLEDS) during the time of pursuing his studies at the Medical Faculty of the Colombo University as a medical student in 1957 has pioneered research work on saving the patients from blindness. In consequence of it, the Eye Donation Service got underway officially in a very small scale on the 11th of June1961. Eyes at this juncture were collected only from the persons who died without any custodians in hospitals and homes for the elders and executed prisoners.
When the Founder of the Eye Donation Society expressed his willingness to his mother to donate his eyes for a needy one after his death, she told his son to get her own eyes in the first instance after her demise as her death would occur before him. Based on these sentiments and the thought provoking discourse of Sivi Jathaka Story delivered by the Lord Buddha, Dr. Silva was able to have published an article under the topic of “Life to Dead Eye” in “Lankadeepa” newspaper on a Sunday in the year 1958. Sri Lankans being in close association of the knowledge of the acts of donating eyes, bones, flesh and blood through Buddhist chronicles came forward to donate their eyes in numbers, over 400 within the first week of such article. More surprisingly, some have opted to donate one of their eyes even during their lifetime. The progression of the eye donation service with such a beginning widened its horizon year by year and Dr. Silva, with the objective of dispatching eyes to foreign countries, went on to communicate with senior eye surgeons in the cities of New York, London, Delhi, Singapore and Tokyo. As a result of all these activities, six eyes were initially donated to the state hospital in Singapore on the 25th of May 1964, a full moon Poya Day and the eye sight of five persons was restored after surgeries performed on them by its Senior Surgeon, Dr.Rocht Law. Following the wide publicity given during the same week through newspapers world over and the BBC Radio Service to this noble act, our eye donation service was able to open its doors to the entire world.
Corneas are provided totally free of charge to hospitals in Sri Lanka. Surplus of eyes are donated to the foreign countries for surgery purposes. As the drugs used to preserve the corneas when dispatched to foreign countries are very expensive, such countries undertake to provide its expenditure as donations. As of now, the Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society has donated corneas to hospitals in 57 foreign countries and is in the forefront of eliminating blindness of over 130,000 eye patients locally and overseas.
The Human Tissue Bank which was founded by Dr. Silva in the year 1996 has now become a very important institution for orthopedic patients in Sri Lanka. The service rendered for the sake of our country by late Desabandhu Dr. Hudson Silva by embarking on the concept of a tissue bank in an Asian country like Sri Lanka is monumentally immortal as such a facility was kept confined only to developed countries in the world. We were in a position to provide more than ten thousand human tissues to our war heroes who were handicapped by the gruesome war against terrorism and also to other disabled patients in the country. Even though there are a number of tissue banks in the world, the Human Tissue Bank of the Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society stands out as the only such bank that provides tissues free of charge. It indeed is a noble deed for us to be very humbly proud of.
Furthermore, our Society has its own contact lenses production facility. We provide very high quality contact lenses produced in the contact lenses laboratory of our Society by specialist technologists trained in Japan at a very nominal price.
Our Societies Dr. Hudson Silva Memorial Eye Hospital and its operation theatre established in honour of our great Founder carries out examinations on outdoor patients and perform cataract removal and other types of surgeries at nominal rates.
The Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society has by now established over 300 actively working branches across the whole of Sri Lanka and renders a yeoman service to the entire world by obtaining eyes through such network of branches as well as Eye Centers and through the technologists of the Headquarters. In addition to that, our great Founder’s objective of seeing to the welfare of the blind has been accomplished by way of helping restoring eyesight of the very needy patients with cataract numbering over 10,000 and also going on to cure many a person in distress with visual impairment due to various reasons. As at present, more than 1,900,000 persons have signed consent forms to donate eyes and tissues. What we should do today to make the prime objective of our great Founder, Dr. Hudson Silva a reality is make it a point to afford two separate persons the good fortune of seeing the light of day through your very own pair of eyes which are subject to decay after your death and also to donate your human tissues and heart valves towards curing the patients in need of them.
Apart from all this, many religious events involving Pinkamas at various places of worship are being held every year to invoke merits on late Desabandhu Dr. Hudson Silva and the most generous public who devoted and donated their eyes and tissues whilst our Society continues to go ahead with its mission of distributing suitable pairs of spectacles free of charge following the examination of visually impaired eyes of the needy poor having organized a host of such events for them through the branch societies of eye donation of the SLEDS situated throughout the island.
Late Deshabandu Dr. Fransiskuhettige Gerald Hudson Silva was born on December 18, 1929 in Moratuwa the fourth in a family of five children.
More Info
Restore the vision of the visually impaired people by providing eye corneas and facilitating orthopaedic care of the disable – differently abled patients by providing human tissues.
More Info
Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society is administrated by 05 main officials. Working committee holds the administrating powers in the society which has 25 members. There is an Executive committee with 100 members and also a Board of Trustees to control and administrate the society’s assets.
More Info