Orbis International brings flying eye hospital to Mongolia
From August 4 to 22, 2024, global eye care charity Orbis International is conducting a three-week training project in Mongolia on board the Orbis Flying Eye Hospital, the world’s only fully accredited ophthalmic teaching hospital on a plane.
The project aims to build the skills of local eye care teams, strengthen the ability of partner hospitals to deliver care, and raise awareness about eye health in Mongolia.
This project marks the ninth time the Flying Eye Hospital has held a training project in Mongolia, with the first taking place in 1989 and the most recent in 2018.
Orbis also hosted four virtual Flying Eye Hospital projects in Mongolia when in-person training was not possible due to COVID-19.
Training activities will occur on the Flying Eye Hospital, currently located at Buyant-Ukhaa International Airport, and at two partner hospitals, the National Center for Maternal and Child Health and Third Central Hospital.
During the training, Orbis clinical staff and Volunteer Faculty (medical experts) will guide participants in simulation training, hands-on surgical training and patient care, and ophthalmic workshops.
The goal is to improve local eye teams’ skills, improving the care they can provide for patients in the ophthalmic subspecialties of pediatric cataract, strabismus, and oculoplastics, and adult glaucoma, oculoplastics, and surgical retina. The training will also cover skills in anesthesiology, nursing, and biomedical engineering.
“We are grateful for our partnerships with the Ministry of Health, the National Center for Maternal and Child Health, and Third Central Hospital. Together, we have been able to increase access to quality eye care throughout the country,” said Dr. Chimgee Chuluunkhuu, Country Director of Orbis Mongolia.
“The Alcon Foundation, FedEx, and OMEGA are very important partners for Orbis, and we are grateful for their indispensable support of this project and support of Orbis’s mission around the world.”
The Alcon Foundation has been a generous supporter of Orbis for over forty years, providing monetary donations for the Flying Eye Hospital. Alcon has provided additional support to the Flying Eye Hospital and Orbis Mongolia through donations of state-of-the-art ophthalmic equipment, surgical products, and supplies through Alcon Cares.
Alcon’s expert biomedical engineers and trainers—who participate in Orbis programmes, sharing their skills and knowledge to help program participants learn to operate and maintain critical medical technology—will lead a biomedical engineering workshop in Ulaanbaatar during the current project. Most recently, Alcon supported the Flying Eye Hospital project held in Zambia in 2023.
“Alcon sees a world where treatable, preventable conditions that affect individuals’ eye health receive the attention they need, when they need it, regardless of geography, gender, age or socioeconomic status,” said Charles Herget, President, Alcon Cares.
“We know that the only way to make quality eye care more available and accessible is by cultivating self-sustaining eye health ecosystems and developing well-trained eye care teams. That’s why we’re proud to support Orbis and its programs that tackle avoidable vision loss by building strong and sustainable eye care systems worldwide.”
