In-flight eye hospital to begin operations in Rwanda Orbis International, a global eye care organization, in partnership with RIIO Hospital, has begun training students and doctors who will help provide medical care at the Flying Eye Hospital.
The hospital will operate in Rwanda for two weeks from July 21 to August 3, 2025, and will provide medical services at Kigali International Airport. The Director of RIIO Hospitals, Prof. Ciku Mathenge, said that what the hospital will do is to help treat various eye patients.
He said, “When Orbis comes to the country, the first thing they do is provide assistance where requested, so what they focus on is treatment because here we do not have enough experience in eye treatment.” Prof. Mathenge also said that Orbis will help train young doctors, adding that 16 of them started their training at RIIO and later went on to provide services at various hospitals.
The patients who will be treated are those with cataracts, cataracts, those who need prosthetics, and eye diseases that affect children. They will be treated using modern technology. There are only 30 ophthalmologists in the country, caring for about 14 million people, which means two doctors serving 1 million patients. Of the 42 district hospitals, only seven have an ophthalmologist.
