At present, over 60 million people around the world suffer from visual impairment and could benefit from cataract or other forms of eye surgery. However, there are not enough qualified surgeons to meet the large demand of operating eye surgery. Patients with eye disease have barriers to eye surgery involving long waiting time and cost. In UK, some patients have to wait for 3 months for cataract surgeries. The cost of a cataract surgery in UK is between £2,000 – £4,000 depending on patient's lens type if the patient donnot quality for free cataract surgery on the NHS.

There is a worldwide deficiency in trained eye surgeons, which is most obvious in third world countries. Intraocular surgery requires in addition to training, delicate and precise hand motion and low levels of hand tremor. Therefore, lack of physical capabilities in surgeons can potentially impact upon the quality of surgery delivery. The training time for a qualified eye surgeon around the world variesis but is universally quite long and generally contains at minimum a 3-year ophthalmology residency combined with a 1-year internship after gaining a medical school degree.