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Concept
Lifeline Express China
Summary
Lifeline Express is a charitable organization that attempts to reduce blindness in China. Since 1997, the organization has operated rainbow-coloured hospital "Eye-Trains," which provide free cataract surgery to patients in rural parts of China. In addition, Lifeline Express promotes ophthalmological training for Chinese doctors, through constructing training centers and inviting foreign doctors to China as consultants, and builds solar hot water systems in remote parts of China.
The development of Lifeline Express is supported by the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Railways and Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office. It is funded by Lifeline Express Hong Kong Foundation, Lifeline Express China Foundation and the general public.
Lifeline Express restores sight to the cataract patients in rural China. The Ministry of Health estimates that 1 million cataract patients remain uncured, with an increase of 500,000 new cases every year. There has been an increase in the number of young people in remote areas suffering from cataracts due to unsatisfactory hygiene conditions and demanding physical labor; and, more and more cases are diagnosed as genetically inherited. Lifeline Express brings back sight to cataract sufferers, allowing them to start working in the fields again and helps poverty-stricken areas to expand the work force, thus improving workers' livelihoods. While working on the eye-train, doctors are trained for future medical development.
This organisation has replicated the Lifeline Express, created in India by the Impact India Foundation. In 1996, Impact India came to Hong Kong to raise funds for this work. Some of the individuals they approached for support quickly saw the potential for mounting a similar operation on China's mainland. A group of Hong Kong philanthropists visited India to see the Lifeline Express in action and then discussed the idea with China's Ministry of Public Health. Celebrating Hong Kong's transfer of sovereignty to China, Nellie Fong Wong Kut-Man, the Founding Chairman of Lifeline Express Hong Kong Foundation, together with 20 other Founding Trustees, raised the capital for the first eye-train.
Official source
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