Working in the underserved regions of 13 countries throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America, Interplast teaches, empowers and partners with volunteers and overseas medical professionals so every child living in poverty has free access to the safest and highest quality care, now and in the future.

Interplast supports 11 permanent Surgical Outreach Centers in nine countries. Patients are being treated year-round for disabling burns and clefts in: Dhaka, Bangladesh; La Paz, Bolivia; Guayaquil, Ecuador; Kumasi, Ghana; Jalandhar and Dehradun, India; Kathmandu, Nepal; Managua, Nicaragua; Lima and Piura, Peru; and Lusaka, Zambia.

This year, Interplast will send Visiting Educators to Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nicaragua, Peru, Vietnam and Zambia to teach 600 overseas medical professionals to perform surgeries safely, effectively and efficiently on their own.

Interplast also will send 9 Volunteer Medical Teams to empower developing world surgeons in Bangladesh, Bolivia, China, Ecuador, Ethiopia, India, Mali, Peru and Vietnam. Each year, these surgical teams perform 1,500 life-transforming surgeries that help reduce the backlog of cases in those countries. Each team trip also provides hands-on training and education. In addition, team trips are an effective way to interact with the host and the site in order to further educate and to assess needs more fully. Information gathered and relationships built through team trips help determine future Visiting Educator Workshops and often lead to the establishment of a Surgical Outreach Center. The current schedule follows.

If you would like to become a medical volunteer or trip coordinator/translator, please see our Volunteer section.

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Africa: Interplast works in Ghana, Mali and Zambia.

Ghana:
Population: 23,351,000
Pop. living in poverty (below $1.25 per day): 30 percent
Productive years lost annually due to: HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB, 857,594; fire burns, 923,197
Physicians per 10,000: 2
Total number of plastic surgeons: 6

More than 742,000 births per year in Ghana result in 1,000 new clefts annually. Additionally, open cooking hearths and kerosene lamps in village homes are responsible for a large number of accidental fires. The horrific burns that result are often untreated and create contractures that limit mobility and functionality. Unfortunately, there are only six trained plastic surgeons in the entire country. In response to the defined need, Interplast established a year-round Surgical Outreach Center in Kumasi, which provides year-round care to children and adults with clefts and burns. The impact of each surgery is significant. As an example, for every burn patient who receives surgery, on average, 17 years of productive life are “returned,” as improved mobility translates to years that they can go back to work or school. In addition, Ghana’s six plastic surgeons, operating in near isolation, are eager for the kind of hands-on training provided by Interplast’s Visiting Educator Program. Ongoing workshops on advanced surgical techniques provide invaluable training to local plastic surgeons and are a core component of Interplast’s presence in Ghana.

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Mali:
Population: 12,706,000
Pop. living in poverty (below $1.25 per day): 51
Physicians per 10,000: < 1
Number of plastic surgeons: 0
Interplast surgeries performed annually: 118

In Mali, more than 6 million people live on less than a $1.25 a day and only one in five people can read. There is only one physician for every 12,800 people—and no reconstructive plastic surgeons. Nearly 17,000 people receive a severe fire burn each year and 775 babies are born with clefts annually. But Interplast is trying to change those alarming statistics. For the last four years, Interplast has sent teams to Bamako, Mali, to restore functionality and hope to those with disabling burns, clefts and other conditions repairable through reconstructive surgery. Over those years, Interplast volunteers have witnessed the remarkable dedication of a young, local physician named Dr. Oumar Coulibably. He hopes one day to be his country’s first pediatric plastic surgeon to help poor children receive the reconstructive care they need. With the help of generous donors, Interplast is funding his education to achieve that goal and to help build surgical capacity in Mali. Until then, Interplast will continue to send teams of devoted volunteers to this challenging site to provide free surgeries for the poorest of the poor.

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Zambia:
Population: 12,620,000
Pop. living in poverty (below $1.25 per day): 64 percent
Number of plastic surgeons: 1
Average life expectancy: 45
Interplast surgeries performed annually: 497

Extreme poverty and disease, especially HIV/AIDS, burden children with the work of adults, as many must take on the roles of provider and head of household for their younger siblings and aging grandparents. Children in adult roles, often working and cooking in unsafe conditions, are more prone to accidents like disabling burns and hand injuries. In Africa, nearly a million people receive a severe fire burn each year. Interplast has been working in Zambia since the late 1990s with Dr. Goran Jovic, the country’s only plastic surgeon. Interplast’s involvement has taken the form of volunteer medical team trips, Visiting Educator Workshops and a Surgical Outreach Center. As the center’s director in Lusaka, Dr. Jovic mends clefts and releases the contractures caused by disabling burns—giving those patients the ability to walk or use their hands again.

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Asia: Interplast works in Bangladesh, China, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

Bangladesh:
Population: 160,000,000
Pop. living in poverty (below $1.25 per day): 50 percent
Per capita total spending on health care (government and private): $12
Number of new clefts each year: 4,900
Interplast surgeries performed annually: 675

In 1996, the first Interplast surgical teams visited Dhaka. The volunteers quickly determined a pressing need for year-round access to care in the country. Three years later, following a successful pilot program for a Surgical Outreach Center in neighboring Nepal, Interplast opened one in Dhaka. At that time, there were fewer than 15 reconstructive plastic surgeons in the whole country of 160 million. Interplast partner Dr. Shafquat Khundkar set out to change that and founded Bangladesh’s first plastic surgery residency program, so that the people of Bangladesh could get access to the care they needed. Over the years, Dr. Khundkar and Interplast have performed thousands of surgeries to correct disabling burns, clefts and hand injuries—and soon his residents, starting their new careers, will be able to expand those numbers exponentially, helping more people in need.

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China:
Population: 1,337,411,000
Number of new clefts annually: 26,000
Number of medical professionals attending educational workshops annually: 85

The World Health Organization estimates there are approximately 26,000 babies born every year in China with cleft lip and/or palate, and there is a backlog of hundreds of thousands of Chinese who have never received reconstructive surgery for their clefts. Children with clefts are frequently shunned and denied an education because of their appearance and speech impediments. China has an ample supply of skilled doctors and nurses, but the health care system does not provide universal access. Impoverished families, especially those from rural regions, simply cannot afford the medical help their children require. Despite recent economic progress, 214 million Chinese still live on less than $1.25 per day. In 2005, Interplast returned to China after nearly a decade-long absence, at the invitation of the China Population Welfare Foundation. Since then, Interplast medical volunteers have gone to several cities in China to help reduce the backlog of patients needing cleft surgery and educate local medical professionals through hands-on training, classroom lectures and Visiting Educator Workshops. The goal is to improve the surgical capacity in China, while providing life-changing surgery for impoverished children to give them hope for a better future.

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India:
Population: 1,181,412,000
Pop. living in poverty (below $1.25 per day): 42 percent
Annual deaths by: HIV/AIDS and malaria, 142,071; fires, 148,498.
Productive years lost annually due to: HIV/AIDS and malaria, 4,629,094; fire burns, 5,147,021.
Interplast surgeries performed annually: 443

Every minute in India, five people are severely burned. Burns are India’s third leading cause of burden of disease, with approximately 3 million people burned each year. Many burn victims are left to spend the remainder of their lives suffering from burn-related disabilities, not because they are irreparable, but because their families cannot afford the necessary medical care. In India, burn injuries leave victims with disabilities that cost $5.5 billion a year in lost productivity (wages and skills). India is the epicenter of the forgotten global health crisis of burns and the pilot site for Interplast’s strategic imperative to scale up treatment for disabling burn contractures worldwide. Thus far, Interplast has provided 1,771 free surgeries in India and restored patients’ abilities to use their hands to eat, to use their legs to walk to school/work, or to use their arms again to care for their babies. By doing so, Interplast has helped “return” 13,630 years of productivity, or 5 million sick days, restoring approximately $58 million to the economy. Interplast has year-round Surgical Outreach Centers in Dehradun and Jalandhar, with future sites under consideration. It also sends volunteer surgical teams to Dehradun each year to provide additional surgeries, medical training and post-operative physical therapy.

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Nepal:
Population: 28,810,000
Pop. living in poverty (below $1.25 per day): 55 percent
Productive years lost annually due to: HIV/AIDS and malaria, 20,889; fire burns, 84,629.
Interplast surgeries performed annually: 2,059

Nepal is home to Interplast’s largest program and the organization’s first year-round Surgical Outreach Center. In 1999, after working with Interplast teams for more than 10 years, Dr. Shankar Man Rai, Interplast’s partner in Nepal, assembled a local team of medical professionals to provide medical services year-round. Over the years, Nepal’s Surgical Outreach Center has provided free surgeries, speech therapy and other medical services in Kathmandu and rural Nepal. In fact, 10 times more patients have been cared for than could have been reached through direct service trips to that location, demonstrating that Interplast can dramatically expand access by directing more resources to locally managed programs. The model has been so successful that now more than 75 percent of Interplast surgeries are performed by our partners in the developing world. Through these kinds of strategic partnerships with international medical professionals, Interplast is creating systemic, long-term support for people with birth defects and disabling injuries in the developing world.

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Sri Lanka:
Population: 20,061,000
Number of new fire burn cases each year: 49,000
Productive years lost annually due to: HIV/AIDS and malaria, 3,865; fire burns, 30,000
Number of plastic surgeons: 6

Like many Southeast Asian countries, Sri Lanka has the dubious distinction of being home to many victims of disabling burns. Most are women and girls, and many are victims of domestic abuse. It’s a hidden horror: fire or caustic chemicals are thrown at an offending woman in at attempt to maim or kill. Sometimes, the burns are self-inflicted, an escape from a circumscribed life. Interplast partners with Dr. Chandini Perera, one of the country’s six plastic surgeons. She runs the country’s only burn unit, with the express purpose of restoring some hope to the lives of these women and children with burn-related injuries. To support Dr. Perera, Interplast provides grants for the education and training of her staff and periodic Visiting Educator Workshops. Over the last eight years, she and her staff have helped heal and empower 6,000 acute burn survivors, as well as provided 16,000 additional patients with reconstructive surgery and rehabilitation. Her patients are from an unseen world, ostracized and hidden from society because of their disfigurements and disabilities, in a culture that inadequately acknowledges violence against women. She restores their abilities to use their hands to eat, to move their arms so they can care for their children, to use their legs to walk to school/work. She restores their hope and dignity and their human rights, and equips them to return to society healed and ready for new productive life through her holistic approach to healing. Perera believes that empowering burn victims to reenter society will help change social attitudes toward domestic abuse and disabilities.

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Vietnam:
Population: 87,096,000
Pop. living in poverty (below $1.25 per day): 22 percent
Per capita total spending on health care (government and private): $37
Physicians per 10,000 population: 6
Years Interplast has worked there: 20
Interplast surgeries performed annually: 482

Twenty years ago, Vietnam was the poorest country in Asia, but its new government was wary of foreigners and outside assistance was almost nonexistent. Interplast was among the first NGOs to begin working in Vietnam; it has been there ever since, providing free reconstructive surgery for children and adults. More than 1,000 volunteers have made 75 surgical team trips to help those who have no other access to care. Making long journeys by boat and by bus across densely forested mountains and wide river deltas in searing heat, Interplast volunteers have provided care to thousands in the country’s most remote regions where access to care is limited at best. To improve access, Interplast also has provided advanced medical education for local physicians. Dozens of workshops in anesthesia, microsurgery, orthodontics, hand and oculoplastic surgery have been held, providing hands-on training by Interplast volunteers for Vietnamese physicians. By training local doctors and thus building the medical capacity, the numbers of patients whose lives are transformed through surgery will continue to grow for generations to come. Overall, Interplast has provided more than $25 million of medical services to Vietnam since 1990.

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Latin America : Interplast works in Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Peru.

Bolivia:
Population: 9,694,000
Pop. living in poverty ($1.25 per day): 20 percent
Number of hand surgeons: 1
Interplast surgeries performed annually: 173

Bolivia is the poorest country in South America. In the developing world, the ability to use one’s hands is crucial—the vast majority of the poor use their hands to eke out meager livings. Injuries and deformities to the hands severely limit an individual’s ability to contribute to society in any meaningful way. And yet, burns, accidents and congenital deformity all too often maim hands horribly. Bolivia, where so many rely on their hands to make their living, has only one hand surgeon. In 1999, Interplast began sending teams of medical volunteers to Bolivia. A few years later, they were joined in their efforts by Dr. Jorge Terrazas, the country’s lone hand surgeon. Today, Bolivia is the site of a year-round Surgical Outreach Center, surgical team trips and periodic Visiting Educator Workshops, all focusing on hand surgery. In all, Interplast surgeons have performed thousands of procedures to heal hands—hands that never fully formed or hands that were maimed in accidents or as the result of a severe burn. Repairing hands is among the most important surgeries that can be offered in the developing world, as the ability to survive independently (to eat, work and learn) depends on functioning hands. Interplast is pleased that, with our partner, we can make a profound impact on the lives of the poor by healing hands.

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Ecuador:
Population: 13,481,000
Productive years lost annually due to: malaria, 3,090; fire burns: 4,901
Years working in Ecuador: 31
Interplast surgeries performed annually: 200

While Ecuador is not as economically challenged as many of the places where we work, its indigenous and rural populations are still very poor and have little access to surgical care. UNICEF calls Ecuador “one of the most inequitable countries in the world.” Reaching poor children who need surgery and building the country’s medical capacity have been Interplast’s goals since our work started there in 1979. Thousands of medical volunteers have traveled to Ecuador to provide free surgeries and to offer advanced medical training. In 2000, a Surgical Outreach Center was opened in Guayaquil, making it possible for the region’s poor to have year-round access to free reconstructive surgical care. In addition, Dr. Jorge Palacios, our partner since 1979, started Ecuador’s first plastic surgery program in order to build surgical capacity and to provide greater access to care by the nation’s poorest citizens.

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Nicaragua:
Population: 5,667,000
Years working in Nicaragua: 16
Visiting Educator Workshops per year: 3-4

Interplast’s involvement in Nicaragua dates back to 1994, when the first surgical teams visited the country. Many subsequent trips were to ingenios: large sugar cane plantations that operate like small cities. For the past few years, Interplast’s partner in Nicaragua, Dr. Mario Perez, has been directing the Surgical Outreach Center in Managua, providing free reconstructive surgery and post-surgical physical therapy to those in need in the city and the surrounding rural areas. Access to highly trained and supported medical personnel is now available year-round—helping ensure that no human being suffers physically or emotionally from an injury or congenital deformity repairable through reconstructive plastic surgery. Interplast also provides additional support and training for local physicians through its Visiting Educator Workshops. One of the most valuable and dynamic workshops in recent years was held in Nicaragua. Interplast’s partner in Sri Lanka, Dr. Chandini Perera, came to teach advanced techniques in burn surgery, while during the same visit she and a physical therapist from Sri Lanka learned new methods of effective physical therapy for burn victims from the medical professionals in Nicaragua.

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Peru:
Population: 28,837,000
Hospital beds (per 10,000 pop.): 9
Number of new clefts each year: 870
Years working in Peru: 29
Interplast surgeries performed annually: 262

Interplast has long been involved in Peru. The organization first began sending surgical team trips to the country in 1981 and continues to this day. Nearly 20 years after the first volunteer medical team trip, a Surgical Outreach Center was opened in Piura. Peru’s improving medical infrastructure and Interplast’s goal of empowering local medical professionals both provided impetus for the center, which makes year-round access to reconstructive surgical care possible. A few years later, Interplast opened a second Surgical Outreach Center, in Lima. Both centers provide reconstructive surgery to children and adults with disabling burns and clefts. Interplast is committed to promoting sustainability and self-sufficiency among its Peruvian medical partners. To that end, the Visiting Educator Program was introduced in Peru in 2001. Through surgical team trips, the outreach centers and Visiting Educator Workshops, Interplast has had a lasting impact and has donated more than $14 million worth of free medical services to Peru’s poor.  

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Medical Programs Schedule

Surgical Team Trips

Interplast sends volunteer medical teams to empower developing world surgeons by teaching and performing approximately 1,500 life-transforming surgeries with them each year, helping to reduce the backlog of cases in those countries and to provide hands-on training.

Team members staffed on these trips should not plan any international travel one month prior to the Interplast trip due to difficult visa authorization processes. Interplast will hold team members' passports until the visa authorization letter is received and then apply for humanitarian visas.

If you would like to become a volunteer, please see our Volunteers page.

2010 - 2011 Surgical Team Trip Schedule

Team Members should not plan any international travel one month prior to the departure date, due to difficult visa authorization processes. Interplast will hold team members' passports until the visa is obtained.

Due to excess baggage issues, a maximum of five team members will be given permission to extend their stay and Interplast will ask you to pay $100. No deviations from the team itinerary can be allowed for Mali and India.

Trip Request Form *For credentialed volunteers only

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Visiting Educator Workshops

Interplast teaches 650 medical professionals overseas each year to perform surgeries safely, effectively and efficiently on their own. Visiting Educator Workshops provide advanced hands-on training in specialized skills and each program is tailored to fit the needs of our partners.

2010- 2011 Visiting Educator Workshops Schedule

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