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Hospitals teach foreign doctors how to rebuild children's faces
Sophie Goodchild, Health Editor09.11.09
Britain's top plastic surgeons are heading a project to help severely disfigured children from around the world.
They will train medical teams from other countries in new facial reconstruction techniques at hospitals across the capital.
The scheme will be the most comprehensive of its kind in Britain. Up to now, the NHS has offered this type of training but only to individual doctors abroad.
The project is funded by charity Facing the World, which has helped dozens of children obtain treatment in Britain for severe facial deformity. Its founders include plastic surgeon Martin Kelly, who died from a heart attack last year aged 43. He was married to actress Natascha McElhone.
About 12 doctors and nurses from Vietnam's Da Nang hospital will be the first to receive guidance in techniques for tumours, cleft palates and skin diseases. They will visit Britain individually and in pairs over the next four years for training at hospitals including Charing Cross, the Cromwell and possibly Great Ormond Street.
Plastic surgeons Niall Kirkpatrick and Simon Eccles, from Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, are among those providing expertise. Sarah Driver-Jowitt, who manages Facing the World, said: "This is not just bringing over a doctor to teach one technique - it's about training up an entire community. These children need to have self-belief. Part of my job is to love the children back because they've not been loved."
Last week, Ms Driver-Jowitt, 35, from Battersea, won a Red's Hot Women Award for her work with the charity. Judges of the prize included Prime Minister's wife Sarah Brown.
Today the charity worker paid tribute to Mr Kelly, whose widow is still involved with Facing the World. She said: "Martin's presence is always with us.
"He would be very proud of the plans we have. He would smile and make some incredibly bad joke."
Reader views (2)
Hopefully this will not be used as a PR coup for cosmetic surgeons in the way Facing the World was used as a publicity engine for the money and publicity hungry Martin Kelly - a man very different from that in the press, a man who in my opinion cared nothing for his fellow human beings.
- James, London
Brilliant news. This is a story worth following through, so I hope we hear a lot more of this.
- Graham Rodhouse, Helmond, Netherlands
