'I see everything clear now,' says one of patients on plane
Lam Vu Nhat Ni perches on her father's lap, wearing hospital pajamas and squinting as she slowly counts the number of blurry fingers held just 3 feet in front of her.
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published October 21, 2006
DANANG, Vietnam - Lam Vu Nhat Ni perches on her father's lap, wearing hospital pajamas and squinting as she slowly counts the number of blurry fingers held just 3 feet in front of her.
"Mot, hai, ba, bon," the 7-year-old whispers. Born with cataracts that have progressed in the past year, Ni can see the shapes, but it's a struggle to make out all four digits.
The second-grader, too poor to fly to Thailand or Singapore for advanced medical care, is among a handful of patients selected to have surgery at Danang's airport aboard ORBIS International's flying eye hospital - a converted DC-10 complete with operating room and rotating volunteer doctors from around the world.
"Before I only saw planes in the sky, but now that I'm on board a plane I'm really happy," said Ni, who traveled six hours from her village with her father, who earns $50 a month farming rice. "I don't feel like I'm in a hospital."
The front section of the plane has been converted into a classroom, with a medical library and a big screen that broadcasts interactive surgeries from the operating room, located in the middle of the aircraft.
The two-week stop in Danang this month was the flying hospital's first time in communist Vietnam, arriving after a four-country tour in Africa. It has traveled to more than 70 developing countries for nearly a quarter century.
The New York-based charity has not only saved or significantly improved the sight of thousands through surgery on the plane, but estimates it has also trained 124,000 doctors, nurses and other health workers to perform the procedures themselves.
"If we teach one doctor a new operation, it's more important than operating and restoring sight to 100 patients," said Oliver Foot, the organization's president. "That one doctor will go on himself to operate on thousands of blind people, and he will teach other doctors the skill he's learned."
Since the plane began flying in 1982, Foot says that millions have had their sight restored through the skills passed along by ORBIS doctors. But that is a small dent in the overall level of preventable blindness and eye conditions plaguing the poor.
In 2002, the World Health Organization estimated that 124-million people had low vision and another 37-million were blind, mostly from cataracts and glaucoma.
Before the flying hospital touches down, ORBIS sends a team into the country to ask which procedures doctors want to observe, based on their experience and the equipment available at their hospitals.
In Ni's case, Dr. Doug Fredrick, a pediatric ophthalmologist from the University of California at San Francisco, removed her cataract alongside Dr. Nguyen Thi Thanh Chi, the only physician in Danang who performs eye surgery on children.
The results were immediate, a day after the surgery when the bandage was removed. She will need glasses, but should now be able to read small type.
"I see everything clear now," she said, smiling. "I could never see my father so clear."