Fewer than 15 percent of participating hospitals earn Excellence in Eye Donation Awards, but for Mattoon’s Sarah Bush Lincoln it’s the second time around, with 24 transplants and vision restoration to 38 patients in 2015.
The Mattoon health care facility met stringent criteria for qualification, including an eye donation consent rate in excess of 45 percent, with a minimum of 10 donors during the calendar year, resulting in cornea transplants for over three dozen recipients.
Sarah Bush Lincoln first garnered the honor for the 2014 calendar year, with a consent rate of 62 percent and 15 donating patients. The award was established in 2014 in the area served by Hospitals in Saving Sight, spanning Missouri and Kansas, as well as Illinois.
“We applaud Sarah Bush Lincoln for empowering others to give the gift of sight and for striving to create a culture that supports donation,” Saving Sight CEO Tony Bavuso said. “Thanks to the generosity of eye donors and their families, and the staff at Sarah Bush Lincoln, more people than ever were able to receive a sight-saving cornea transplant last year.”
Approximately 48,000 people nationwide need cornea transplants annually to repair vision loss caused by disease or injury. The Saving Sight group was instrumental in facilitating over 3,000 of these surgeries in 2015. For more information on becoming an eye, organ or tissue donor, please visit www.donatelife.net.
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