Operation India: new faces, brighter futures

Fourth-year medical student Andrew Lewis describes ten days he spent in Nagpur, India, that changed the lives of 104 children with cleft palates. The Northern Cleft Foundation (NCF) is a non-profit humanitarian medical organisation that takes a small team of volunteers to India each year to operate on people with cleft lip and palate deformities free of charge. Interested in global health and the work done by the NCF, I quickly agreed when offered a place on their upcoming trip in January 2010. The size of the team generally consists of around 30 people, including maxillofacial surgeons specialising in cleft repair; anaesthetists; theatre, recovery and anaesthetic nurses; and the odd medical student. Everyone who comes along is expected to raise money to cover their own travel and accommodation expenses and pay for operations on five children: rental of local hospital space and equipment means that the price of one operation is approximately £100. And so after a few months of vigorous fundraising I found myself eagerly awaiting our departure date. Flying via Mumbai, we landed at the single-terminal airport of Nagpur city, Maharashtra state, where the 2010 camp would be held.