ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital brings gift of sight

Sapna Dogra - New Delhi

President Abdul Kalam with the Orbis team

Dr Duraiya Ghulam Ali, an anaesthesiologist from Drishti Netralaya, Dahod, Gujarat can’t stop raving about the amazing experience she had on-board ORBIS DC-10 Flying Eye Hospital (OFEH). Even President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam boarded the OFEH to witness the efforts being made by an international team of eye care professionals.

OFEH is the only flying eye hospital in the world, aimed at creating awareness about eye care, training of ophthalmologists, establishing international norms of nursing and operation room standards by training nurses and paramedics. Parked at the Haj Terminal at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, this was the 15th visit of OFEH to India and third to Delhi, sponsored by FedEx Express and Virgin Atlantic.

The story of OFEH dates back to 1982 when Dr David Patton, an ophthalmologist in the US, got wings to his long cherished ambition of making the best of eye care facilities available, especially to the underprivileged across the globe.

OFEH boasts of an OT, a recovery room, TV room, administration room, engineering department. There are 16 cameras and 24 monitors on the plane, besides, state-of-the-art equipment like slit lamps, ret cam, yag lasers and argon lasers, etc. The team of experts consists of 11 ophthalmologists, two nurses, one orthoptist, one anaesthesiologist and one eye banking personnel. There is also a team of biomedical engineers. Interestingly, all of these personnel are from diversified nationalities giving a global feel.

OFEH also has a conference room, with a seating capacity of 30, along with a projector for telecasting the procedure live. Doctors, desirous of participating in the classroom training with live telecast had come from various eye hospitals across the country.

During its 14-day halt in Delhi, the OFEH conducted surgical training programmes in childhood blindness, corneal blindness, eye banking and community ophthalmology as well as management training for doctors, and hospitals from the northern and central states of India. Besides India, ORBIS is currently running programmes in China, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Ethiopia. Soon, the programme will expand to Latin America.

The trainees, who participated in the surgeries with the expert doctors from the UK and the US, had come from the three host hospitals in the capital, R P Centre for Medical Science (for pediatric blindness), Venue Eye Institute and Research Centre (for corneal blindness) and Shroff Charity Eye Institute for pediatric blindness.

“India has the best eye care surgeons and some of the best eye care institutions in the country, However, the distribution of these services is haphazard and rural areas remain neglected,” said Dr Carlos Solarte, director of the OFEH.

Besides training doctors and treating patients on board, OFEH is running two community outreach training programmes in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. The next visit of OFEH to India is scheduled for 2007.

sapna.dogra@expressindia.com