Omega’s Partnership with Orbis restores vision around the world.
According to the World Health Organization, 39 million people are blind worldwide and 285 million have visual impairments, with the vast majority of them (about 90 percent) living in developing countries where access to medical care may be limited. Statistics like these make the state of the world’s sight look pretty dim. But according to Orbis, a nonprofit organization that offers individuals around the world access to quality eyecare, more than 80 percent of vision problems can be avoided or cured. And Orbis has set out to do just that.
The nonprofit’s model is simple and brilliant: retrofit a commercial aircraft with all the tools and facilities needed to make it a mobile teaching hospital, recruit an experienced staff of volunteer doctors, and fly the globe offering mobile education programs and surgeries where they’re needed most. Doctors treat and lead trainings on such ocular issues as glaucoma, retinal abnormalities, ocuplastic surgeries, pediatric eye care, and diabetic retinopathy.
The aircraft, which is aptly named The Flying Eye Hospital, hosts a completely customized interior outfitted with a sterile operating room, classroom, laser and examination rooms, and a recovery room. Orbis volunteers (ophthalmologists, anaesthesiologists, and other teaching-certified eye care professionals) fly into remote locations prepared to both operate on patients and train local doctors to make the best use of their own facilities. This emphasis on training is what sets Orbis apart. The Flying Eye Hospital can only serve so many patients, but the work that volunteer doctors do with local healthcare professionals ensures that Orbis will have an impact long after its plane has left the tarmac.
So how did Omega enter the picture? The company got involved with Orbis through its relationship with the James Bond movie franchise and the most recent Bond actor, Daniel Craig. Says Omega CEO Stephen Urquhart, “When we discussed with Daniel Craig after his first film, Casino Royale, I told him: ‘Listen, you have to plan on becoming an ambassador now, because you’re going to be Bond for the next few years. You are part of the family.’” (Omega has been the official timepiece of the James Bond franchise since 1995.) “And Daniel said, ‘Yeah, great, but let’s find something different, I don’t want to be just an endorsement, I don’t want to do advertising like this, let’s find something [meaningful].’” Craig traveled to Mongolia with Orbis to see the Flying Eye Hospital at work with his own eyes. “I met up with them in Vietnam,” Urquhart remembers. “To be there and see how this whole thing is operated, it’s incredible.”
Cindy Crawford, also an Omega brand ambassador, went to Peru with Orbis and brought along her then 13-year-old daughter, Kaia. “I feel like children—my children anyway—learn best by example. If I say something, I feel like it goes in one ear and out the other,” she says with a grin. “[But] for her to not just watch me, but to meet and hang out with Dr. Frederick [an Orbis volunteer specialist] and see these people who are doing incredible work and giving so much of themselves and their time and their resources … who cares about missing a week of school, you know what I mean?” Crawford says the trip completely changed her perspective: “Hearing what they do is one thing, but going is a whole other thing.”
And “going” is exactly what Orbis is doing—farther and faster than ever before. Serving 92 countries since 1982, the organization will, as of next month, add a second Flying Eye Hospital to its fleet to expand its reach across the globe. The new plane will feature greater fuel efficiency, an upgraded avionics package, and the ability to broadcast live lectures and surgical trainings online.
Omega’s Urquardt emphasizes that, although there are some parallels between watchmaking and performing surgeries, “… that’s not the reason we do this. The key is eyesight,” he says. “[In] our business, eyesight is essential: making the watch, using the watch, wearing the watch—without eyesight this would be impossible. That’s the key to this whole story.” It’s clear to see he’s absolutely right. —Hyla Bauer
