This Flying Eye Hospital is giving people the gift of sight, education, and economic productivity.

Credit: Apex

Orbis, the international nonprofit that fights blindness worldwide, unveiled a new Flying Eye Hospital last month at Los Angeles International Airport. The former cargo plane, which was donated by FedEx, was transformed into a mobile ophthalmic teaching hospital. Hundreds of experts in avionics, hospital engineering, and other specialties came together to turn the hospital into a reality.

The hospital houses 3D technology and live broadcast capabilities to teach more doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals around the world in order to treat more patients with eye impairment.

More than 285 million people are visually impaired, and 4 out of 5 suffer from preventable conditions. Ninety percent of these people live in developing countries where they cannot access sight-saving treatments.

In the United States, it's difficult to imagine that visual impairment could cause you or your family to be at an economic disadvantage, but that is the reality for many people in developing nations.

Bob Ranck, CEO of Orbis, said,

"Blindness is part of a cycle of poverty. When you restore sight to a child, you have a multiplying effect on his economic productivity throughout his life. When you treat blindness in a town, you raise the economic productivity of the entire town."