New grants for Eye Hospital

02 Sep 2022

Patients, staff, research and new equipment at Sydney Eye Hospital have been given a boost this year with new grants totalling $251,905 from its accredited charity, The Sydney Eye Hospital Foundation.

Announcing this today Foundation Chief Executive Officer Linda Fagan said, “This brings our total commitment this year to over $1.4 million to the only specialist eye hospital in New South Wales. We are delighted to give this support, importantly, also, it will also allow new treatments through research.”

Dr Jed Lusthaus pictured with Linda Fagan, CEO of the Foundation

Dr Jed Lusthaus pictured with Linda Fagan, CEO of the Foundation

The new grants include:

  • $3,675 to nursing and orthoptic staff for training and development with industry experts.
  • $50,000 research grant to Dr Jed Lusthaus, a glaucoma specialist and clinical researcher at Sydney Eye Hospital and University of Sydney.

“I am hopeful this research will lead to a more precise and individualised approach to glaucoma care,“ Dr Lusthaus said.

“It is a privilege to be able to contribute to glaucoma research and I am thankful to the Sydney Eye Hospital Foundation for providing this wonderful opportunity.”

$145,730 to purchase a new Optical Coherence Tomographer (OCT) at the Kogarah Eye Clinic
  • $145,730 to purchase a new Optical Coherence Tomographer (OCT) at the Kogarah Eye Clinic. This satellite clinic of the Eye Outpatients Department provides general, medical retina, glaucoma and paediatric eye services.

The OCT is essential (pictured above) for accurate diagnosis and monitoring of disease progression for patients with both acute and chronic eye conditions and means patients can receive care close to home.

According to Melanie Lai, Orthoptic Department Head at Sydney Eye Hospital, “The OCT is a vital part of routine eye assessment. Images of the optic nerve are essential for diagnosis and ongoing management of Glaucoma and we are so grateful to have this new technology at the clinic.

“The new OCT is so fast, it takes a few seconds to take scans and gives us more information than ever before.”

  • $50,000 to Associate Professor Matthew Simunovic (pictured above), a Consultant Vitreoretinal Surgeon at Sydney Eye Hospital & the Sydney Children’s Hospital Network and Associate Professor of Ophthalmology, University of Sydney, where he leads the Retinal Disease and Rescue Group.

This exciting research project aims to impact retinal degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in children and adults in Australia. At present, there are no approved treatments which can reverse this sight loss.

Said, A/Prof Simunovic, “The Sydney Eye Hospital Foundation’s generous support will allow my group’s discovery to be exploited for therapeutic purposes in laboratory models of retinal degeneration. It will also allow us to better characterise surgical specimen-derived retinal progenitor cells”.
Meet our researcher’s here

Pharmacopeia App
  • $2,500 to the Pharmacopeia App (above), a joint initiative of Pharmacy and Sydney Eye Hospital health practitioners giving ophthalmologists, pharmacists, and eye health care workers real time access to reliable accurate information on medications used to treat eye disease.

“I refer inquiries from all over Australia to the app daily, it’s all there at their fingertips”, said Vicky Chen, Head of Pharmacy.

Ophthalmologist consultant Dr Matt Wells is proud to have contributed to the project, “It’s been downloaded more than 6,100 times, and provides information on dose, side effects, monitoring and interactions and is a trusted resource.”

Professor Peter McCluskey, Vicky Chen and Dr Matthew Wells

Professor Peter McCluskey AO, Professor & Chair of Ophthalmology, Director Save Sight Institute, The University of Sydney, also commented on this initiative, saying he was grateful to Sydney Eye Hospital Foundation for enabling ongoing updates of the vital source of information.

“Health practitioners using the app can be reassured they are prescribing the right drug and the right dose in the right patient. It also flags drug interactions, systemic side effects and cautions. This will further improve patient safety. No wonder its being used globally, too.”

Download the App from Google Play or Apple Stores.