Working with our partners, we share skills, knowledge and expertise to support local eye care teams in developing their skills and capacity.

With a growing, ageing global population, specialist training is critical. Every time someone is trained, many more benefit – the eye care workers they train in turn and the many thousands of patients they all see.

Orbis medical volunteers are at the heart of specialist training.

Through programmes in hospitals, onboard the Orbis Flying Eye Hospital and online, they train ophthalmologists, anaesthetists, nurses, biomedical engineers and others to help realise our vision of eye care everywhere.

In 2021, our target was to deliver 18,500 training sessions for health workers across all our projects. But thanks to additional funds from Sightsavers for mass drug administration (MDA) in Ethiopia, we delivered more than 36,000. This remarkable increase will have an exponential effect on the number of people whose sight is saved in Ethiopia and around the world.

20 years of Orbis impact

Suma's story

More than 20 years ago, Suma Ganesh attended an Orbis-funded hospital-based training programme in India.

Inspired to learn more, she travelled to New York in 2001 to complete an ophthalmology fellowship. And it was meeting Orbis medical volunteers during that time that sparked her interest in paediatric ophthalmology.

“I have been helped a lot, and I know all my mentees have been helped. And I can see their progress, and I think that’s a very heartening thing as a mentor. I can see their progress, and I’m very proud of them.”

Dr Suma Ganesh,

Returning to India, she took part in the ‘Hand in Hand Sight Saving Project’, as she explains:

“It was the first hospital-based programme. Before this, [there] were Flying Eye Hospital programmes, but this was the first land-based programme. It was planned by the Orbis team, making it as child friendly as possible. They designed the building based on the Orbis child eye hospitals in Hong Kong and made it very child-friendly with a play area.”

In 2004, having completed her qualifications, Dr Suma Ganesh took a position at Dr Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital, where the children’s eye centre – India’s first – was established.

Over the years, she has participated in many more training programmes, developing her specialism in strabismus (squint).

She’s also developed many professional friendships, including one with medical volunteer Dr Andrea Molinari, with whom she now co-teaches on the Orbis online training platform, Cybersight.

Now the Deputy Medical Director, Chairperson and Head of Paediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus at the hospital, Dr Ganesh thinks back to her own early experiences when reflecting on how valuable Cybersight is today:

“You may be in a remote area, and you have no senior to guide you. I know – because I had that initially. You see a complicated case, and – who do I ask? So, there is in Cybersight this senior doctor, this mentor, to guide you to treat this condition.”

Bangladesh Bangladesh

In Cox’s Bazar, South East Bangladesh, our training activity under Covid conditions was boosted by supporters’ incredible generosity in response to our matched-funding Christmas appeal.

Training sessions included work on adapting to minimise the risk of Covid infection, sharing skills for frontline health workers, supporting eye care teams to grow their capacity, and supply chain management. In total, almost 190,000 patients directly benefited from access to specialist eye care in Covid-safe facilities.

Distanced learning Distanced learning

Unfortunately, due to ongoing travel restrictions, the Flying Eye Hospital was again unable to travel internationally in 2021. However, we have continued to optimise the latest digital technology to conduct training sessions remotely. Operating again as the Virtual Flying Eye Hospital, medical volunteers implemented 10 remote courses for Orbis partners in 34 countries, including Ghana, China and Mongolia, and across Latin America. In total, more than 635 eye care professionals attended these training sessions, which included traditional lectures, webinars and a virtual hands-on simulation.

The Orbis Flying Eye Hospital.

A special birthday

Unfortunately, due to ongoing travel restrictions, the Flying Eye Hospital was again unable to travel internationally in 2021.

However, we have continued to optimise the latest digital technology to conduct training sessions remotely. Operating again as the Virtual Flying Eye Hospital, medical volunteers implemented 10 remote courses for Orbis partners in 34 countries, including Ghana, China and Mongolia, and across Latin America.

In total, more than 635 eye care professionals attended these training sessions, which included traditional lectures, webinars and a virtual hands-on simulation.

Specialist training Specialist training