Roundup
Manila Standard Today
October 21, 2010
PHILIPPINE Airlines promised to transport human eye corneal tissue to any part of the country for free to help some 4 million Filipinos who are visually impaired, the Department of Health said on Wednesday.
PAL president Jaime Bautista said they are glad to assist "in their small way" those needing corneal transplants as the country's flag carrier supported World Sight Day.
Bautista said that with few eye donors for so many who are visually impaired, both government and the private sector have to work together to bring down incidence of blindness and visual impairment.
The Eye Foundation of the Philippines is a partner in the free human eye corneal tissue transport and are required to coordinate with PAL's cargo reservation a day before the day of transport.
Bautista also said PAL accepts human organs, in specially designed hand-carry containers, on all domestic flights and provides members of organ retrieval team with special boarding and deplaining privileges on a last-in-first-out basis.
Bautista explained that PAL's detailed packaging, handling and transport procedures for human organs was updated in October 2009 after the request of the Health Department for PAL's support to the Human Organ Preservation Effort Retrieval Team of the National Kidney and Transplant Institute.
PAL, he said, has always accommodated the kidney retrieval team to carry human subject to packaging requirements and without sacrificing the health, safety and comfort of its commercial passengers.
NKTI says the transport of human organs, such as kidneys and liver, require delicate handling as these organs are fragile and cannot withstand heat in the airplane's cargo hold. Kidneys also have to be transplanted on patients with end-stage renal failure within 20 hours.
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