Ethiopia: Flying Eye Hospital program wrap-up

It’s been an amazing few weeks taking in World Sight Day and celebrating our 20thanniversary of sight saving work in this beautiful country.

Thanks to the sponsorship of our partner Alcon Foundation, our local partners (Federal Ministry of Health and the Ophthalmological Society of Ethiopia) and our dedicated Volunteer Faculty we were able to host a three-week training program, sharing skills and knowledge with local teams to help improve the quality of eye care available for generations to come.

The Honorable Dr. Kebede Worku, State Minister, Federal Minister of Health and attended the opening ceremony where our CEO Bob Ranck gave an impassioned speech about the importance of collaboration in improving eye care in Ethiopia.

The Flying Eye Hospital proved what a pivotal awareness raising tool it is by attracting not only government officials but a host of state media too.

On World Sight Day we asked the Orbis family to help spread awareness of eye care by telling the world why it was important to them.

We were also thrilled to launch the Singing Tree in Amharic on World Sight Day. The Singing Tree is a free illustrated storybook designed to encourage school children to seek help if they are living with poor vision. Read more here.

During the Flying Eye Hospital visit we also celebrated our 20 year anniversary of sight saving work in Ethiopia.

We set up our very first program office in Addis Ababa in 1998, and joined local partners in:

• Introducing modern cataract surgical techniques
• Training the first generation of eye sub-specialists
• Introducing pediatric eye care by opening the first three child-friendly centers at Menelik Hospital, and in the cities of Hawassa and Gondar
• Developing and launching the Eye Bank of Ethiopia,
• Leading the consortium for a trachoma elimination project, initiating SAFE (Surgery, Antibiotics, Facial cleanliness and Environmental improvement) strategy and rural eye care infrastructure.

Stay tuned for more news from Ethiopia as the eye care community ramp up efforts to eliminate blinding trachoma and transform the lives of millions of Ethiopians.

Thanks to the sponsorship by Alcon Foundation, this program focused on both adult and pediatric subspecialty training, including pediatric cataract, strabismus and glaucoma, as well as adult cornea transplant, cataract, glaucoma, retina and oculoplastics.

We welcomed teams from local hospitals who participated in live surgery, lectures in the plane’s on-board classroom, workshops and wet lab training. We had around 335 local professionals on board, examined 250 patients and performed surgery on 122 people. All of the surgery was broadcast in the plane's classroom and all over the world thanks to our award-winning telehealth platform, Cybersight.

We were honored to welcome Brook Yeshitila onto the plane, a famous local artist and an ambassador of the Eye Bank of Ethiopia. Brook has pledged his own cornea to the Eye Bank and uses his influence to encourage others to follow.

When Brook was 18 years old, he slowly and unexpectedly became paralyzed from the waist down until it eventually affected his whole body except for his arms. Luckily Brook received surgery 4 years ago and can now walk again with the help a walking aid.

It was pleasure to meet such an inspirational figure dedicating so much of his time to the fight against blindness.

And finally, we’d like to say another big thank you to the 28 Volunteer Faculty who kindly donated their time and expertise to help train and teach colleagues in Ethiopia. We couldn’t do what we do without you.