Surgery charity to raise funds with ball

A MEDICAL charity that carries out life-changing operations on children will hold its Christmas ball on Wednesday.

The Overseas Plastic Surgery Appeal (OPSA) is hosting the joint fundraising event at Lazaat restaurant in Cottingham, from 7pm, which will also raise money for the Oncology Health Centre at Castle Hill Hospital.

A team of plastic surgeons working for the charity has just returned from a trip to Gujrat in Pakistan, where they carried out reconstructive surgery on almost 140 children.

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OPSA chairman Nick Hart will give a presentation on the charity's work and its latest trip.

There will also be an auction, raffle, a four-course meal and entertainment from the group The Other Three.

Proceeds from the ball, which is being sponsored by the Physical Therapy Clinic, will be split between the two charities.

Mr Hart said the charity depended on donations and fundraising events to be able to carry out is work, with trips to the subcontinent costing between 10,000 and 15,000.

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"All the money we raise will go directly into getting us to India and Pakistan to treat the children," he said.

"The costs are mostly for our air fare but we also need to buy antibiotics and anaesthetic drugs, sutures and surgical equipment."

The surgeons mostly repair cleft lips and palates, a condition affecting about one out of every 600 children in Pakistan.

Without the opportunities offered by OPSA, the children have no other recourse to treatment unless they have funding, and most are desperately poor.

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Mr Hart said: "It's providing something to children that won't be provided otherwise.

"If they can't afford to have it done privately they don't get it done, and we do get instant results."

A number of tickets for the ball are still available and cost 40 each.

To book or find out more call Sidonie Myers on 07528 524798.

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