Donor plea as eye bank marks 40 years

The Bristol eye bank’s longest-serving staff member Toni Woodward has urged local people to register their decision to donate on the organ donor register

A man who has worked at a Bristol eye bank for nearly three decades is appealing for more cornea donors — as he waits for his fourth transplant from the very service he helps run.

Toni Woodward, 56, from Weston‐Super‐Mare, joined what was then the Bristol Eye Bank in 1995 and has since received three cornea transplants, all sourced from his own workplace.

He is now on the waiting list for a fourth. Born with congenital glaucoma — a condition causing high pressure inside the eye — he underwent surgery as a child but never expected to one day need a cornea transplant.

His appeal comes as NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) marks 40 years since the eye bank first issued corneas for transplantation in 1986.

Toni, a father of two and grandfather of one, said: “Becoming a recipient myself makes me see the work that I do differently.

“I’ve always been in awe of the families who make that decision to donate their loved one’s corneas but I also now have that personal experience and true understanding of the benefits that a cornea transplant can bring.”

The bank was originally established by the University of Bristol’s Department of Ophthalmology, and quickly transformed corneal transplantation across the country.

A new storage technique extended the viable life of donated corneas from four days to four weeks, while a national distribution network meant surgeons no longer had to rely on local donors becoming available at short notice.

The procedure could, for the first time, be planned well in advance.

In its first year, the bank issued just 59 corneas. It now issues more than 4,000 every year, and has sent over 110,000 to hospitals across the country since opening. The service, now based at NHSBT centres in Filton, Bristol and Speke, Liverpool, formally came under NHS Blood and Transplant management in 2015.

Emeritus Professor John Armitage, who helped set up the original eye bank and received an OBE for services to corneal transplantation in 2019, said: “To have been involved from the start with the setting up of Bristol Eye Bank, helping to create a service that has benefited so many patients needing corneal transplants over the last four decades, has indeed been a privilege.”

Toni is urging local people to register their decision to donate. He said: “I cannot thank the families of my donors enough.

“It’s because of them that I have been able to watch my granddaughter grow up, I can carry on with the activities that I enjoy and importantly, do the work that I do, to make sure that others also receive that precious gift of sight.

“Please, consider cornea donation and register your decision to donate on the Organ Donor Register.

“It means everything to people like me.”