MOHAN Foundation, in collaboration with NATCO, organized an online masterclass titled “Hospital Corneal Retrieval Programme: From Missed Opportunities to Meaningful Action,” on July 18, 2026, for NATCO and MOHAN Foundation members. Ms. Lalitha Raghuram, Country Director at MOHAN Foundation, welcomed the participants and introduced the speaker, Ms. Rakhi Nathawat, Assistant General Manager (AGM) – Cornea and Public Health and In-charge of the Eye Bank at Dr. Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital. Ms. Nathawat brings over 20 years of experience in eye health care, eye banking, corneal transplantation, and strategic program management, and currently serves as the North Zone Representative of the Eye Bank Association of India and Past President of Rotary Club Jaipur Organ Donation.

Ms. Nathawat opened by framing the scale of the problem: nearly 12.7 million people worldwide live with corneal blindness, a condition that, unlike most other causes of blindness, is fully treatable through a routine, low-cost transplant, with a single donor able to restore sight to two, and in some surgical techniques up to four, recipients. In India, she noted, roughly 100,000 transplants are needed annually but only 28,000 to 30,000 are performed, a gap she attributed to low public awareness, weak referral systems, and the difficulty of meeting the critical 6-to-8-hour retrieval window.

She then contrasted the traditional voluntary donation model with the Hospital Cornea Retrieval Program (HCRP). Voluntary programs depend on grieving families proactively calling an eye bank, often without a trained counsellor present to explain the facts, and calls frequently come in 10–12 hours after death, by which point retrieval is no longer possible; utilization under this model hovers around 50 percent. HCRP, by contrast, relies on hospital staff systematically identifying deaths and immediately alerting a dedicated, trained counsellor, dramatically shortening the death-to-retrieval interval, expanding the donor pool to include younger donors such as road accident victims, and lifting utilization to 85–90 percent.

Turning to implementation, Ms. Nathawat described HCRP as a structured, hospital-owned system built on a collaborative ecosystem. She stressed that hospital leadership, particularly a pro-donation Medical Superintendent or CMO, is essential since they control the flow of death notifications, while nursing and ward staff serve as the first point of contact and should inform the counsellor within 30 minutes of any death, without attempting medical screening themselves, which must be left to the counsellor to avoid unnecessarily filtering out eligible donors. She recommended a “mortuary first” strategy, explaining that medico-legal cases offer a natural 3-to-4-hour window while families await formalities, giving them time to absorb the loss and often yielding an 80 percent consent rate, compared to 45–50 percent in non-MLC cases. She also pointed to technology, such as WhatsApp-based instant death-notification groups or alerts built directly into hospital EMR systems, as tools that strengthen the referral chain.

On operational and medical standards, she clarified that donors aged 2 to 100-plus are generally eligible, and dispelled common myths, noting that poor eyesight, wearing glasses, or a history of glaucoma surgery do not disqualify a donor. Absolute contraindications include AIDS, Hepatitis B and C, syphilis, rabies, and blood or skin cancer. Retrieval must occur within 6–8 hours if the body is at room temperature, or 12–14 hours if refrigerated, and families must be informed that 10cc of blood will be drawn for mandatory testing, without which retrieval cannot proceed. Retrieved tissue is preserved in MK Medium, with a 4-day shelf life, or Cornisol, which extends storage to 14 days.

Much of the session focused on counselling, which Ms. Nathawat called the emotional core of HCRP. She emphasized that counsellors must wait until a family has moved past initial shock or denial before approaching them, since requests made too early are likely to be refused, and that the right person to approach is often not the next-of-kin but whoever is managing practical formalities like billing or transport. She outlined key communication practices: always using the deceased’s name rather than clinical terms like “the body,” avoiding jargon such as “keratoplasty,” acknowledging the family’s grief with genuine empathy before raising donation, reassuring them that there is no facial disfigurement and that funeral rites will not be delayed, and never pressuring a family or repeating a request once they have declined.

She closed the technical portion by outlining the legal and ethical framework governing HCRP in India. Under The Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Rules, 2014  (THOT Rules, 2014) anyone in legal possession of the body may give consent if the next-of-kin is unavailable, but consent must always be in writing and signed by two witnesses, since telephonic consent is not legally valid. Financial incentives or sale of corneas are strictly prohibited and can result in license cancellation, and the identities of both donor and recipient must remain confidential throughout. To evaluate program performance, she pointed to four key indicators hospitals should track: referral rate, consent rate, time to retrieval, and utilization rate, noting that a low utilization rate often signals screening gaps or technical errors during retrieval, such as stress lines or cell damage.

Ms. Nathawat concluded by underscoring that a successful HCRP rests on a formal MOU between the hospital and the eye bank, with the eye bank expected to provide a 24/7 helpline, ongoing staff training, and a feedback loop that shares utilization data back with the hospital and publicly recognizes staff contributions, together building a sustainable culture of donation.

The session concluded with an interactive question-and-answer segment, during which participants engaged with Ms. Nathawat on practical aspects of setting up and running an HCRP within their own hospital settings.

Nearly 60 participants joined the masterclass, which gave transplant coordinators and hospital staff a clear operational blueprint for establishing or strengthening a Hospital Cornea Retrieval Programme and reinforced their central role in closing India’s corneal transplant gap.