ESCRS working to support Ukraine

Very soon after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of this year, ESCRS executives formulated a plan to determine the needs of Ukrainian ophthalmologists in the war zone, solicit the equipment and supplies to meet those needs, and deliver them to the country.

The ongoing efforts, working with sister organisations and industry, have already provided more than one million euros in support to Ukrainian ophthalmological colleagues in logistics and medical supplies. The supplies are delivered to storage centres in Poland and then transported to Ukraine.

Many organisations and companies have provided generous assistance. The Lions Eye Institute for Transplantation and Research, Alcon, BVI, and Zeiss have all stepped forward with very generous donations of equipment and material. This includes all manner of supplies, such as PMMA IOLs, orbital implants, silicone oil, Decalin, lacrimal probes, surgical loupes, and eye shields and a palette of surgical packs from Zeiss (co-donated with Hartmann). Bausch and Lomb generously provided two Stellaris machines.

The ESCRS is making every reasonable effort to ensure the vital equipment donated by industry partners—and drugs largely purchased from either ESCRS’s reserves or through generous donations from both sister societies and members—reaches the right hands.

ESCRS Managing Director Tom Ogilvie-Graham visited Ukraine and travelled to clinics in Lviv, Kyiv, and Irpin. He delivered an endoscope donated from BVI to Professor Marian Sarakhman at the Lviv Ophthalmic Regional Eye Trauma Centre. Professor Marian’s son, Dmetro, is also a cataract and VR surgeon—to whom the Managing Director is particularly grateful for chauffeuring him between Lviv and the Polish border.

That visit also delivered an endoscope to the ophthalmic department of Kyiv military hospital, where it was particularly sad to see young soldiers, who were fully fit only a week or two previously, now totally blind despite all the best efforts to salvage at least some sight.

Professor Andriy Ruban, who runs the Kyiv Centre of Clinical Ophthalmology, helped set up these visits and has been immensely helpful throughout, as have Dr Lyubomyr Lytvynchuk in Giessen and Aneliya Nehanova (who has volunteered to oversee the storage in Krakow and transport across Poland).

In addition to checking on the distribution chain and storage, the ESCRS ensures all administration costs remain as low as possible. For example, the storage in Krakow is provided at a fraction of the market rate, and the storage and local distribution in Lviv is provided for free by Dr Goriachev and Professor Novytsky.

“There is a great deal of self-help when it comes to onward distribution in Ukraine and, whilst some clinics may feel we could do more, I am confident we are reaching as many as reasonably possible under the circumstances,” said Oliver Findl MD, President of the ESCRS.

Other initiatives include the development of a consultant network under the direction of Dr David Verity and James Hampton in the ESCRS head office. This is well underway and this could be of particular use in the long term, with Ukrainian surgeons being able to discuss more complicated cases, including reconstructive surgery and facial maxillary cases.