‘Flying eye hospital’ to train Pampanga workers

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga — The "flying eye hospital" of Orbis International, equipped with a classroom and clinics with state-of-the-art ophthalmological instruments, arrived here last Monday for another mission — to train local ophthalmologists, nurses, biomedical engineers and other healthcare workers.

Local newsmen were allowed to enter the DC-10 flying hospital which is slated to stay here for 15 days upon the invitation of Pfizer Inc. and the Central Luzon Society of Ophthalmologists.

Brooke Johnson, Orbis communications coordinator, said information on her group’s plans will be released today.

Sources, however, said officials of the government-owned Jose Lingad Hospital in San Fernando City are organizing a training workshop to be held aboard the flying hospital.

The participants, in turn, are expected to pass on their newfound knowledge to their colleagues in local communities.

The flying hospital is funded by various international groups and travels to developing countries with a team of professionals and volunteer ophthalmology specialists who represent some of the world’s leading eye care institutions.

The Orbis team conducts surgical, nursing and biomedical engineering training on board the plane and in hospitals and medical schools.

It is reportedly slated to train medical students of the Angeles University Foundation’s department of medicine.

The flying hospital has a classroom, audio-visual room, laser and examination room, conference room, operating room, sub-sterile and scrub room and a communications center. The lower level houses a technical and maintenance center.

The Orbis aircraft first took flight in 1982.

According to the Orbis website (www.orbis.org), 45 million of the world’s population are blind while another 135 million either have poor vision or are at risk of going blind. "Eighty percent of them don’t have to be," it said.

"A three-week training program by the Orbis flying eye hospital can educate 120 South Asian ophthalmologists in a new technique to treat glaucoma. Those trainees will, in turn, share their knowledge with their colleagues, multiplying the impact of the Orbis program so that thousands of people are treated and cured," the website added.

Since 1982, Orbis has carried out over 500 short- and long-term programs in 81 countries, training more than 63,000 ophthalmologists, nurses, biomedical engineers and other healthcare workers.