The world's only Flying Eye Hospital is touching down in Dublin this week to thank Irish supporters for their help in combating preventable blindness in the developing world.
The Orbis Flying Eye Hospital, which is housed in a converted DC10 plane, will be coming straight from its latest sight saving programme in India for a week at Dublin Airport to raise the profile of avoidable blindness.
"The whole reason we're going into Dublin is because we have had such a response from Irish donors," Orbis spokeswoman Megan Munsell said.
"It's so rare that the Flying Eye Hospital is in northern Europe, so its lovely to bring it here for them. We're always bowled over by the support we get from Ireland.
"There's real interest in our work with the Flying Eye Hospital," she said.
While the plane is in Dublin, supporters of Orbis will get to see first hand how their money helps some of the 28 million people around the world who are unnecessarily blind. According to Orbis, there are 37 million blind people in the world, but three quarters of them do not need to be. Around 90 per cent of them live in developing countries.
Cataracts are an "overwhelming" cause of blindness in developing countries, with 18.5 million people unable to see because of the condition in which the lens clouds over. Other preventable conditions include glaucoma, which is damage to the optic nerve, often associated with high pressure in the eyeball and trachoma, which is a form of conjunctivitis.
"We deal with forms of blindness that can be treated, generally speaking types of blindness we have been able to eliminate in the West," Ms Munsell said.
Visitors will be able to have a go at performing their own cataract operation - using plastic eyes and an operating microscope which allows surgeons to operate with extreme precision. They will also meet members of the hospital's team, who come from around the world, and some of the volunteer pilots who give up their time to fly the plane.
The hospital has 20 full-time members of staff and a number of volunteers who join the Flying Eye Hospital on a programme or week-by-week basis. The plane contains an operating theatre, a recovery room, an audio-visual suite and clinic for laser eye treatment. What was once the first class section of the plane is now a classroom where up to 48 doctors and nurses can be taught via a series of cameras and audio equipment linking them to other parts of the hospital.
Orbis's has a global network of 76 countries which it works with and also has permanent offices in China, Vietnam, Ethiopia, India and Bangladesh.
Following its visit to Dublin, the plane will be touching down at Stansted in the UK and visiting France for servicing before heading off on its next mission to Bulgaria in June.
PA