Name and position?
Gerrard Gosens, Special Projects Manager at Queensland Eye Institute (QEI).
Tell us about your business/organisation?
The Queensland Eye Institute is Queensland’s only independent medical research, hospital, eye clinic, and academic institute dedicated to blindness, low vision, and eye related health. It has been established to reduce blindness and low vision, improve eye health, and ultimately eliminate preventable blindness around the world.
Our premises in Melbourne Street, South Brisbane brings together our eye clinic to treat people with eye disease and eye related problems (including blindness and low vision), medical research laboratories to help find better treatments and cures, plus a teaching facility for a wide range of medical training activities. We have also established the South Bank Day Hospital onsite, and the Queensland Electro-diagnostic Imaging Centre.
The Queensland Eye Institute Foundation is a not-for-profit charity and we receive no government funding, we rely on the generosity of donations and bequests to fund our work, especially critical medical research. In a few short years research funded through these programs has been ground breaking, but there is more work to do. At present, we are the only group in Australia engaged in the development of cell therapies for all clinically significant regions of the eye.
What are your key skills and responsibilities?
My responsibilities at the Queensland Eye Institute span across a diverse range of areas, and these include project management, marketing, public relations, government relations, education.
My responsibilities also include the establishment of a number of projects throughout the State which will assist in generating funds and awareness of the Queensland Eye Institute.
How many people work at your business?
80 employees and 14 volunteers.
What is your favourite place in the precinct?
Being a long distance Paralympic athlete, the running paths are my favourite part of the precinct.
What do you want BSB members to know about you or your business?
QEI is a hidden gem in respect to what it does. Changing the lives of Queenslanders who are blind or have low vision.
Our hospital and day clinic provide medical treatment and care to over 18,000 people every year.
QEI does not receive any government funding, and is totally dependent upon the generosity of the community.
What is something people wouldn’t know about the Queensland Eye Institute?
It is celebrating its 50th Anniversary of its medical research into the cure of blindness.
It has a dedicated team of staff doing medical research into the four major areas of blindness.
What has recently happened at your organisation?
The medical research team have identified some great markers into the prevention of glaucoma. The QLD Eye Institute has established a fundraising committee with representatives from businesses around Brisbane volunteering their time to help raise money for our medical research.
What have you learnt lately?
Opportunities exist everywhere, even where you least expect it! The contacts that I made at the BSB Showcase event have resulted in the planning of some amazing fundraising events including the ‘Hair Raiser’ celebrity event to be held on World Sight Day, October 8.
What do you hope to achieve in your industry?
We hope to cure blindness.
What inspires you?
The challenge.
I have, what I consider to be, both the best and worst job in the world. I have the opportunity to change lives, considering half of the Australian population is known to have a sight problem– but no one knows who we are and what we do at
QEI. It all starts with raising awareness!
What are your words of wisdom?
I have three:
1. Success is a journey, never a destination
2. If you think you are two small to be effective, you’ve obviously never been bitten by a mosquito!
3. Change is constant, growth is optional