Cornea transplants are the most common type of transplant. Corneas are not affected by as many diseases as other organs. Cancer patients, people with diabetes and those who have poor eyesight can donate corneas.

More than 50,000 cornea transplants are done in the United States annually, and corneas that can’t be transplanted can be used in research.

Heartland Lions Eye Bank handles cornea donation for NMC under the umbrella of the Midwest Transplant Network. NMC’s cornea donation consent rate is 70 percent — the highest of all the Lions Eye Bank hospital partners.

Cornea donation has contributed significantly to NMC overall donation rates.

Cornea donation is quick, simple and will not prevent an open casket or delay a funeral.

A cornea procurement specialist from Newton is called to the hospital, uses a tool to make a small incision in the eye and removes the thin clear cornea, which looks similar to a contact lens.

“That alone — that transplant gives them the gift of sight. That’s all — that thin little cornea,” Arnold said.

Sylvia Reinhardt, eye bank hospital services coordinator, related the story of a woman in western Kansas who was legally blind until she received a cornea transplant. Her vision now is 20/30, she’s returned to driving and plays with her grandchildren.

After the procurement, a small disc is placed under the lid of the eyelid to keep the eyes closed, a procedure most funeral homes do regardless if there is an eye donation.

Donations go to local recipients first.

“Heartland Lions Eye Bank believes in community first. All corneal tissue we retrieve is offered first to surgeons in our three-state service region (Kansas, Missouri and Illinois) before being distributed nationwide. Eighty-one percent of our retrieved tissue is placed domestically — the highest rate of domestic placement of any procurement agency,” Reinhardt said.

From July 1, 2008, to Feb. 28, the eye bank distributed 190 corneas to Kansas recipients, according to Eye Bank Association of America statistics.

Reinhardt said the gold award was a great testament to the dedication of the staff at NMC.

Donating organs

Some family members are concerned about funeral arrangements when discussing donation, but even when organs, tissue and bone are removed for transplant, families can have open-casket funerals, and funerals are not delayed.

A transplant team comes to the hospital and procures the organs, tissue or skin before the body is released to the funeral home.

Where tissue or bone is removed, supportive material is put in place to make the body appear as it did when the person was alive.

Bone can be used in facial reconstruction, limb salvage, correction of birth defects and cancer treatments.

A pancreas transplant can enhance or save the life of a diabetic and eliminate the need for insulin.

Skin can be used for burn patients. Veins can be used to restore blood flow to various part of the body. Major organs, such as heart, lung, kidneys or liver, all can be lifesaving.

But the demand far outstrips the supply for these needed donations.

As of 2006, there were 99,462 registered kidney, liver, pancreas, intestine, heart and lung potential donors.

There were 92,492 patients waiting for those transplants.

In 2005, 28,110 transplants were performed.

During that same year, 6,342 patients were taken off the transplants list because they died.

There is no cost to the donor’s family for any type of donation.

All these may just seem like a bunch of numbers, but they aren’t to Claudine Corkins and her family.

Corkins’ son died suddenly of a brain aneurysm in 2005. His family donated everything except his corneas.

She said she has taken solace in knowing there is a young mother who has his kidney and a child has his other kidney and yet someone else who has his heart.

“Our hearts are warmed so much to know so much good has been done,” she said of her son’s donation. “I really believe it is a good thing, and it eases our pain and suffering when you have lost someone.”