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Orbis International, the charity behind the The Flying Eye Hospital, recently acquired a new Boeing MD-10. With over 93 countries within its scope of service, this plane will likely see some miles. But what else does it do? Some visitors to this years’ Dubai Airshow got the chance to find out.

The name is a little misleading

While it does fly and it is an eye hospital, the flying hospital doesn’t do surgeries in the sky. It’s more of a mobile training unit. It travels to countries such as Peru, Barbados, China, Mongolia and Ethiopia where it remains for 15 weeks at a time.

During which, a select number of doctors, nurses and health specialists are brought on board to complete eye surgery and examination training. Some surgeries are also performed on board. This is based on locational need and training opportunities.

What’s going on inside the Flying Eye Hospital?

The MD-10 has essentially been gutted for the conversion, and nine modular compartments have been fitted inside. There’s an admin office, a audio visual room, an operating room, and there’s a regular cabin like module for travelling – which is also used as the classroom. There’s a comfortable recovery room as well as cargo spaces for equipment, which is unloaded when the flying hospital is operational on the ground.

It has a lot of very niffy kit and features too

There’s a trapdoor in the admin office with a hidden stairwell down into the converted cargo hold. This is now a maintenance space which is much needed – there’s a lot to maintain on this plane.The audio visual room is also much more than a camera storage hub. From here technicians take care of the on board Wi-Fi – essential in places with none. Also, Orbis often broadcast their surgeries around the world to specialist offering guidance from London, Chicago or Sydney. The students sitting in ‘economy’ are also watching. There’s not enough space for them all to stand outside the small OP viewing window.

Towards the back of the plane hospital, the operating room looks remarkably like any other high-tech, first world medical facility. Microscopes, LED lights, scalpels 3-D monitors and sanitizing and anesthetizing equipment, is all on show.

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The plane is also completely self-contained. It can make it’s own medical oxygen, purify water from any source, and even runs it’s equipment via a jet fuel using generator.

How do Orbis pay for the Flying Eye Hospital?

Orbis accepts donations from the public and sponsorship and gifts from corporations. Their new MD-10 came from FedEx. Qatar Airways and Pfizer are also on their list of partners.

Despite having a great big aircraft full of expensive equipment, Orbis are considered a very efficient charity. Running on the “teach a man to fish” principle, the charity has trained 10,000 doctors, carried out 12.5 million eye exams and performed around 350,000 eye surgeries. So their good work doesn’t stop happeneing after they take off.

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They’ve also been granted special privilages which help them keep their eye hospital flying. The Federal Aviation Authority classified their plane as a freight carrier to cut down on paper work. If they were seen as a passenger carrier, around 30 percent of their charitable income would be spent on paperwork completion and legal obligations alone.

Orbis International is a non-profit non-governmental organization (NGO) based out of the U.S. You can check out their website here.