We Are Here For You
Together, we are facing a time of great uncertainty. Virtually everyone is impacted by the global pandemic we’re navigating.
This pandemic has had a devastating and immediate impact on Lions Eye Institute for Transplant and Research. The government mandate prohibiting elective surgeries has put a stop to our ability to perform cornea transplant surgeries with our partners. While we’ve seen a decline in the demand for cornea tissue, our patients’ need for cornea transplants continues.
The government mandate prohibiting elective surgeries has put a stop to our ability to perform cornea transplant surgeries with our partners. This has led to a 70% decrease in revenue, which is approximately a $500,000 deficit for each month that we are not fully operational.
Despite the challenges in our path, as a leading global non-profit, we continue to focus on three distinct areas:
Keeping our team safe.
Performing critical services needed for our emergency patients.
Preparing to quickly return to full operations as soon as we safely can.
To ensure our employee’s safety, we are on a rotational schedule to bring down the total number of people in our building by 50 percent. Hand sanitizer and masks have been made readily available for all staff. Most importantly, we have been able to retain all our staff and will be ready to resume full operations as soon as the ban on elective surgeries is lifted.
We continue to recover and prepare cornea tissue for emergency surgeries, approximately two per week, down from 50 transplants per week from our normal operations.
This pandemic is an issue no one could have fully prepared for, but I know this organization and this community will return – and we’ll be stronger and more resilient because of it. Thanks to the dedication of our team and generosity of our supporters, we remain strong and look forward to continuing our work to give the gift of sight.
The support from our community over the past 47 years has made our mission to restore sight possible. With your generous support, we’ve given the Gift of Sight to more than 140,000 people all over the world. Although there is a great deal of uncertainty at the moment, when this crisis has passed, we will be there for our donor families, healthcare partners, our supporters and the tissue recipients who desperately need our services.
As we safely continue our work, our message to you now is a simple one: we are here, and we are ready to continue giving the gift of sight.
