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Flying hospital seeks tie-ups with UAE medical fraternity

DUBAI — The Orbis Flying Eye is currently in Dubai seeking tie-ups with the ophthalmologist fraternity and the health authorities in Dubai. It is en route to Syria to offer medical training and eye care treatment to the Syrians.

Also known as 'Flying United Nations', the Orbis Flying Eye has already toured 76 countries offering free medical training programmes and treatments.

"Orbis has programmes in 86 countries, but the aircraft has only been to 76 countries," explained Geoffrey Holland, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) yesterday.

He also said that as a non-profit organisation, Orbis visited countries only on invitation. "The purpose of the visit to Dubai is to introduce the medical fraternity to the plane and our work," added Holland.

He explained that in the Middle East, Palestine was one country that required help. "We do not have the permission to land in Palestine and we do not go to any country uninvited," he said, adding that they were, however, carrying out talks to work out a feasibility.

The flying hospital will be visited by government officials and leaders of Dubai's ophthalmic community for a tour aboard the unique aircraft over the next two days at the Executive Flight Services terminal at Dubai International Airport.

The state-of-the-art DC-10 aircraft has been fitted with ophthalmic surgical and training facilities. "We have 48 seats for the experts who have come aboard for training. This is done through an interactive monitoring department within the aircraft. An operation being carried out in the operation theatre can be seen by the trainees while they can also interact with the surgeon as well," said Dr David Hunter Cherwek, Medical Director, Orbis.

Despite the absence of a multi-government study, there are indicators that eye problems are increasing in the Middle East, especially due to lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, says Dr Cherwick.

"Worldwide, we have been mainly tackling diseases such as cataract, glaucoma and paediatric blindness," he explains. "The latest surgery we performed was on a 102-year-old woman in Vietnam for cataract while we have also operated a child as young as 28 weeks."

Orbis has a volunteer network comprising 2,000 people, including surgeons, nurses, anaesthetists and bio-medical engineers. The organisation sees nearly 400 patients during a programme while it has at least 10 programmes lined up in different countries throughout the year.

The flying hospital is due to leave for Syria in two weeks. The other countries to be visited later this year include Tanzania, Nigeria, Uganda and China.