Flying eye doctors at work in the Gulf

Press, 21 April 1984, Page 29

Flying eye doctors at work in the Gulf

By

STEPHEN FIDLER,

of Reuters through NZPA Manama, Bahrain When a former Bahraini fisherman, Mahmoud Wahab, went blind about two years ago his hopes of ever seeing again went too. Hut now the man, aged 65, can see again thanks to a cornea given by a Texan, a New York-based organisation, and the efforts of a medical team that fUes the world in an ageing, converted airliner. Mr Wahab, who regained the sight of his right eye after surgery in March when the Project Orbis team landed in Bahrain, said simply, "I am very happy. Thanks be to God.” The airliner and its team of eye experts have already visited Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe, and the United States. Now hope has been brought to the Middle East.

A McDonnell Douglas DCB that is 25 years old has been turned into an eye hospital, with an operating theatre equipped with laser technology. From it the medical team teaches new eye care techniques to doctors throughout the world. The plane, called Orbis after the Latin word for eye, is the brainchild of a

Houston eye surgeon, Dr David Paton. Dr Paton decided to take the hospital to the surgeons instead of the other way around after discovering that he was learning as much as he taught when he travelled on teaching trips. He is now in Saudi Arabia. Dr Simon Holland, a staff ophthalmologist with Orbis, said, “there has been a revolution in ophthalmic care over the last 20 years thanks to microsurgery, which means that many causes of blindness previously untreatable are now treatable.

“Yet many countries still accept a degree of blindness that they needn’t."

The Orbis team has helped 2000 blind people in 29 countries to recover their eyesight in the last two years. According to the World Health Organisation, 42 million people throughout the world are blind — unable to read the large letter “E” on top of an optician’s chart from three feet away and therefore unable to function normally even in a simple rural society. Much of this blindness can be prevented by relatively simple medical techniques or cured by recent advances in eye care, including cornea grafting, re-

placement of eye lenses with artificial implants, and laser surgery on the ultrasensitive retina. As the Orbis team, most of whose members are American, shows its latest techniques, local doctors also demonstrate skills they have acquired through fighting eye problems. At the end of the visit to Bahrain before moving on to the United Arab Emirates, Dr Holland, who recently practiced in Canada, said, “We learn too. Eighty per cent of the advances in ophthalmology have originated outside the United States.” In the Persian Gulf, where heat and dust cause serious eye problems, surgeons have developed a special expertise in using plastic surgery on damaged eyelids which can be an obstacle to recovery from eye operations.

Orbis, which is supported by voluntary contributions and has its headquarters in Manhattan, has not been free from controversy.

Critics have accused the programme of placing too much emphasis on curing blindness with high technology which many Third World countries cannot afford. As a result, they say, scarce resources have been

diverted from preventive medicine. They say that expanded programmes of silver nitrate treatment in the eyes of new-born children would sharply reduce the incidence of ophthalmia neonatorum, a form of conjunctivitis which is a big cause of blindness. Orbis, which has also been accused of neglecting post-operative care, says it plans to deal with this criticism by adding a team of post-operative specialists to the project. An increasing emphasis will also be placed on community medicine. The team says its visits often focus public attention on the plight of the blind and move governments to action. Orbis doctors are also encouraging “eye exchanges,” such as one between Sri Lanka and the Persian Gulf. Though scarce in the Gulf, donated eyes are plentiful in Sri Lanka as people aim to emulate Buddha, who gave his eyes so a blind man could see. It was through a Sri Lankan cornea that a Bahraini, Youssef Ahmed Salman, aged 60, saw for the first time in many years last month after an operation aboard Orbis.