Victoria Beale, a surgeon from the Salisbury District Hospital, is flying to India on a mission to help children with cleft lip and palate deformities.
Dr. Beale will travel to Nagpur on January 13 with the Northern Cleft Foundation, a group of doctors and nurses who volunteer to operate on people in remote parts of the world who do not have access to sophisticated hospital facilities and services.
“This is my fourth cleft trip with the same organisation, and my second visit to Nagpur. Last year we operated on 68 patients, and there are already 120 patients registered for this year’s cleft camp,” Dr. Beale said.
“I will be joined by a team of anaesthetists, nurses and three other cleft lip and palate surgeons from around the U.K. We will run three operating theatres for up to 14 hours a day and have the offer of a fourth operating theatre in a nearby hospital to ensure that we don’t have to turn any patients away,” she added.
The mission, she said, was being supported by doctors and nurses at Lata Mangeshkar Hospital and the Nagpur West branch of the Rotary Club International.
