253 million people in the world that are visually impaired,
36 million of them are blind.
75 percent of those people that are visually impaired do not have to be.
This is the world's only flying eye hospital.
It's a training hospital run by volunteer medical professionals
that treats people in some of the poorest parts of the world.
We've been as an organization to 93 countries.
We don't go one and done and gone.
We just finished the aero in Peru where we had a 10-year program with them
so it's all about sustainable education within these countries.
See the fuel nozzle?
Yeah.
So that's the way you would normally refuel the airplane.
We push the fuel out to our equipment and burn jet A.
Orbis is a nonprofit NGO that runs solely on donations
and for their sponsors, it is an opportunity to be part of something unique.
The training we provide, the supplies for which we provide,
the surgery for which we provide, all free of charge.
The hospital area is nine pallets or module configurations.
This is our first one. This is our admin room.
We have access to the lower compartment
where our aircraft maintenance and biomedical engineering
for the hospital lies.
So if this was a commercial plane this would be where your luggage...
...where your luggage would go.
We have toolboxes, spare parts, monitoring systems instead of that.
Everything you would have in a regular building, we have in this airplane.
Internet connection?
Internet connection, sure do. That's his job.
We can control every camera in the airplane here.
We can zoom in, zoom out.
The NGO says they've trained more than 10,000 doctors,
conducted nearly 13 million eye exams
and performed nearly 350,000 eye surgeries
all on this specially designed plane.
We make our own hospital grade oxygen.
We purify water to kill every bacteria known to man.
Separate power system, separate water system, separate cooling system
that has nothing to do with the airplane.
We have a liquid cooling system in the hospital.
Airplanes don't have liquid cooling systems, they use air.
One of the most common questions we get is, do we do surgeries in the air?
No.
Omar is one of our ophthalmologists on board the aircraft, our staff ophthalmologist.
And he's actually doing something that's very similar
to what aviation people would understand as a simulator.
They can train the skills, so let's say, do cataract surgery like removing a lens.
Inside here is the surgeons' theater right?
And this is a viewing gallery?
Certainly it's the operating room, the OR.
On the ground, very little movement, very thick, has wood built into it.
So the vibration is cut down so it doesn't affect the microscope.
You look here, you might even want to take a look through our 3D glasses.
The side of his eye has been pulled to one side.
That's this right here to separate the eye lid to keep it up open.
It's making my stomach turn a little bit.
Well, yeah don't pass out on us.
The front of the plane serves as a normal cabin to transport the team but for the students
it's the classroom.
They will see just as if they were looking through the microscope themselves.
We would zoom in, captured on video and audio, pass that along to the trainees
so they can review it multiple times over and over.
It's just a pretty slick way to be able to teach people.
Orbis will only go to a country if invited
and then work with local hospitals to provide the training they want.
But what happens when they leave?
All these procedures can be done in their hospital, with the equipment they have,
with the services they provide.
It's not us just going into their country and we're teaching them.
There's a lot of cases they're teaching us.
You'll see on this airplane, we can have as many as 15 different nationalities
working together for the same cause.