How COVID-19 is impacting Eversight’s mission

By David Bosch, President/CEO

May 4, 2020 — Since COVID-19 pandemic restrictions on corneal transplants were announced, we have worked to keep our many valued partners – surgeons and researchers, eye banking and Lions partners, and advocates – apprised of how the crisis has impacted our operations and ability to meet our mission.

We’ve been incredibly inspired by everyone’s encouraging messages and support as we confront the pandemic’s impact on Eversight and the patients we serve awaiting sight restoration. As we’ve shared before, recovering, preparing and providing corneal tissue for U.S. transplants accounts for 94% of our operating revenue. With the restriction on elective surgeries including most corneal transplants, that means we are operating indefinitely on less than 5% of our expected revenue.

{ Visit eversightvision.org/covid-19 for ongoing updates }

The situation remains urgent, but there’s some good news. Eversight received a Paycheck Protection Program loan. With this loan, our hiring and spending freeze, and the ongoing generosity of contributors to our effort to Keep Hope in Sight, we are confident that we can continue operations uninterrupted through September. By then, we are hopeful that corneal transplants will have resumed.

We’re cautiously optimistic. Many states have announced plans to ease business and stay-at-home restrictions in May and June, and some hospitals are beginning to project manageable COVID-19 patient caseloads that will enable them to resume elective surgeries, including non-emergency corneal transplants.

Make no mistake: It will be a slow progression over many months as hospitals and surgery centers implement new protective protocols, evaluate patients and prioritize transplants by severity of need and their COVID-19 risk. Some cornea transplant candidates will continue waiting for surgery based on hospital capacity and their risk of COVID-19 exposure, especially those in vulnerable populations such as older patients.

Before the pandemic, Eversight provided an average 162 cornea placements each week. We are now providing for about 20 surgeries a week, generally for urgent ophthalmic needs as described by the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

We’ll keep you posted on future progress. Until then, we’re taking care of our staff, managing recoveries and providing for emergency transplants under stringent safety protocols—and thanking all of you for the support we’re receiving throughout this crisis.

I’ll leave you with a few words from one of our gracious supporters who included this message with a generous gift in response to our appeal.

It’s messages like this that inspire me. I am confident we’ll see this through and continue helping thousands of people see once again.