Flying Eye Hospital touches down in Mongolia

Hosted by the First Central Hospital of Mongolia and the National Center for Maternal and Child Health, the Flying Eye Hospital will directly support a long-term project by Orbis North Asia. The project aims to establish a pediatric eye care center at the National Center by 2019. Also, by leveraging the awareness-raising power of the Flying Eye Hospital, Orbis North Asia plans to launch another adult eye care initiative next year.

The project focuses on both adult and pediatric subspecialty training, including pediatric cataract, oculoplastic, strabismus, retinopathy of prematurity and refractive error at the National Center, as well as adult cataract, glaucoma and retina diseases at First Central Hospital. Our team of world leading Volunteer Faculty will provide training tailored specifically for local ophthalmologists, nurses, anesthesiologists, biomedical engineers, and other eye health professionals. Lectures and surgeries on board the Flying Eye Hospital will be broadcast live to eye teams around the world through cybersight.org, our online telemedicine platform.

In 2015 the Report of Rapid Assessment of Avoidable Blindness estimated that 6,900 people over 50 are blind, while 6,800 people are severely visually impaired. Among those, 39% were due to cataract and 20% due to glaucoma. Another 15,000 people require low vision services, which unfortunately are not available in the country at the moment.

Mongolia has one of the lowest cataract surgical rates in Asia, 1,200 per million each year. Currently 90% of all cataract surgeries are performed in the capital city because out of 21 aimags (provinces) only 6 have the capacity to conduct independent cataract surgery.