YOU’VE TRAINED COUNTLESS HEROES DURING THE YEAR OF THE NURSE

Like many of the nurses who work with Orbis, Xiao Ying is hardworking, kind, and adaptable. She had learned English so she could become part of the Flying Eye Hospital crew.

Xiao Ying is an infection control specialist. Her skills have always been crucial to the Flying Eye Hospital service. They were life-saving during a deadly pandemic.

Nurse Xiao Ying demonstrates the love and care for patients that we see so often in our nursing team.

How fitting that we are now marking the International Year of the Nurse, when we acknowledge and celebrate the vital contributions of nurses in every healthcare system.

When Nurse Xiao Ying returned home to Wuhan from a Flying Eye Hospital flight in December 2019, she heard that an unknown virus was causing people to die of pneumonia.

By late January, Wuhan was in lockdown to control what’s regarded as the world’s first outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Xiao Ying saw the challenges facing frontline nurses, who were often working long hours with limited PPE.

Along with her colleagues, Xiao Ying wrote an article on infection control to help nurses around the world keep their patients and themselves safe from COVID-19. With your support, she was able to quickly start sharing her knowledge about infection control through the ‘virtual’ Flying Eye Hospital.

In Wuhan, the virus is under control and life is slowly returning to normal. But your kindness continues to spread learnings from the world’s first coronavirus epicenter to eye nurses still battling outbreaks around the world.

Nurse Flor Romero joined her first internet training session with the Flying Eye Hospital from her home in Trujillo, Peru this year.

She loved teaching and learning from the personal experiences of eye care nurses across Peru and Bolivia. Tragically, these countries are now dealing with major COVID-19 outbreaks. During the training sessions, nurses enthusiastically share insights and information. They cover many aspects of their work, from the operating theatre to sterilization and recovery, so they can keep improving patient care and saving sight through this crisis.

These are serious topics, but the online training has given Flor and her fellow nurses a chance to connect with others called to the wonderful profession of nursing.

Flor said: “It was also an opportunity to give back to Orbis and say, “thank you!”

Thank you for supporting the work of brave Eye Heroes like Flor in the International Year of the Nurse—and through the extra dangers and challenges of COVID-19.

Ophthalmic nurse and cataract surgeon Célestin Kanmegne jumped at the chance to attend training sessions on board the virtual Flying Eye Hospital. The convenient format meant Célestin and his colleagues minimized time away from their work at a hospital in Cameroon.

They are adapting to the dangers of COVID-19 with rigorous safety measures and reduced patient numbers. But Célestin says many health professionals are struggling with the psychological impact of this pandemic.

The virtual training gives them a chance to share experiences with other skilled eye professionals, and to continue to improve their skills in cataract surgery and pre-and-post-operative care.

Eye professionals like Célestin couldn’t keep up their sight-saving work without your generous partnership—thank you.

Thank you for training Eye Heroes around the world in the International Year of the Nurse!

Will you help Orbis keep up our virtual training missions, so we can keep fighting blindness through the COVID-19 crisis?