Free Surgery

About one and 700 children around the world are born with a cleft lip and palate defect every year. In Pakistan, children not only have trouble eating and drinking, they're also facing difficult psychological and social challenges. A simple plastic surgery could correct the defect. But in Pakistan, many families can't afford the procedure. And even if they could, there aren't enough doctors who perform it, says experts. "There's a huge problem in terms of cleft in Pakistan. There's some very very good local surgeons who are doing large volumes of cleft surgery. But the volume of cleft in Pakistan is so large that they cannot deal with all of these cases." Hill is part of a charity program organized by Ayesha Bashir Trust, which brings teams of doctors to Pakistan to help with the shortage of physicians. Dr. hill is one of many doctors from the United Kingdom visiting cleft Hospital Pakistan, in the north eastern city of Gujarat, to perform cleft treatments for free. "It's important I think to collaborate with new surgeons from abroad to try and increase the training of local surgeons and that's what we're doing here. There're local trainees and other local consultants that we work with." Dr. Rios, who works with the charity says he's amazed by the simple display of humanity.