A Look Inside the Orbis Flying Eye Hospital
They maintain a variety of facilities around the world, including the planet’s largest eye bank (yep, that is what it sounds like). Orbis contracts with a number of glasses manufacturers to provide people in need with glasses, especially students.
Using money from private donations, in 1992, Orbis purchased a DC-10, N330AU. Before being bought by Orbis, N330AU had a rich history. It began its life in 1973 with Trans International Airways. From there, it changed hands through Transamerica Airlines, Nigeria Airways, Air Florida, and Federal Express (FedEx). Before being put into service with Orbis, N330AU was flown to an air force base near Tucson, Arizona, where it spent almost 2 years being overhauled into a fully functioning eye hospital and teaching center.
If you didn’t know what you were looking at, you’d probably assume the above surgery was occurring in a hospital somewhere. But no, this is all happening aboard Orbis’s Flying Eye Hospital, which at the moment was parked in Bangladesh.
Orbis updated the interior of their DC-10 in 2016. It is equipped with two completely sterile operating theaters (both equipped to do laparoscopic operations), the ability to administer anesthesia, an “outpatient” clinic for nonsurgical eye issues, a 46 seat classroom, and even it’s own water treatment system. They employ the latest teaching tools. Students can use VR to watch the operation live from the surgeon’s point of view. There are additionally live broadcasts streamed to students in the classroom area so they can observe various techniques.
Orbis employs world class eye surgeons, who treat conditions from cataracts to retinopathy to glaucoma, a degenerative disease of the optic nerve. They have saved an estimated 200,000 people from vision loss.