INTERPLAST is a merger of Plastic
Surgeons, Jaw-Face-Surgeons, Anaesthetists and Nurses within these disciplines
whoes aim it is to operate on children and grown-ups in Developing Countries
in their spare time - free of charge. They deal here with patients with
congenital distortions in the face, at their hands and their feet. The
removal of or relief from extreme distortions and scares after burnings
and injuries, but also good and benign tumours on the surface of the body
count to their tasks. In many Developing Countries infectious tropical
diseases leave terrible defects in the face and on the body, for example
Lepra and the Noma.
The reconstruction of these defects
needs all the knowledge and skill of the Plastic Surgery. The people that
suffer from these distortions do not have the least chance in their Countries
to receive an adequate treatment. There are many medical as well as social
reasons for this.
Interplast's mission is to provide free reconstructive surgery for people in developing nations, and to help improve health care worldwide. The organization's goals are to establish, develop, and maintain host-country, domestic-patient, and educational programs with the following objectives:
Provide direct patient care -- reconstructive
surgery and ancillary services to those with no other resources.
Provide educational training and
medical interchange.
Assist host-country medical colleagues
toward medical independence.
Enable recipients of care to become
providers of care to new sites.
Interplast maintains no political
or religious affiliations.
Sensitivity to, and respect for,
other cultures as equals pervades the Interplast philosophy and deeply
influences the manner in which we conduct ourselves as ambassadors.
Interplast was founded in 1969 in the USA by Dr. Donald R. Laub, who was then Chief of Reconstructive and Plastic Surgery at Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto, California.
INTERPLAST GERMANY, which was founded
in 1978 as a national chapter of Interplast, yearly sends around 25 complete
operating-teams from all over Germany with the necessary equipment, materials
and medicine in all parts of the world.
In each of these missions approximately
80 to 160 patients within 2 or 3 weeks are operated. In very extreme cases
INTERPLAST organizes and finances a treatment in Germany itself.
Beyond the immediate medical help for the affected population another goal will be in each mission to offer medical educational training for native doctors and nurses. Through integration into the operating- and treatment-program they will be enabled to establish that what here in Germany is operation standard. A further smaller task of INTERPLAST is to arrange scholarships in Germany as well as financial support for hospitals in the Developing Countries.
All INTERPLAST-missions and activities
are financed solely through donations and the voluntary unpaid work of
the members in the different section.
1993 the section Hattingen/Ruhrgebiet
was founded by doctors from the Ev. Krankenhaus Hattingen gGmbH with nowadays
members in all of Northrhine/Westfalia. The section Hattingen/Ruhrgebiet
meanwhile carried out 15 missions in Latin-America, in Africa, in South-East-Asia
and on the Indian continent and has operated upon 1000 children. In the
same time over 20 children could be treated in Hattingen with great expenditure
and support of the Ev. Krankenhaus gGmbH. Many children of Developing Countries
could be brought for treatment into other hospitals in NRW.
Hospitals in Nepal, Brazil and
Eritrea were also financially supported.
Everybody can become a member by
filling out an application form if the person does not want to get involved
actively in the missions and only wants to support the aims of the organisation.
Constant news inform about the
activities of the organisation.
Should you be interested in a membership and would like to support the goals of the organisation, please contact us to get the our coupon and to send it back to the local section of the organisation. In return you will receive the statutes, the current information and an invitation to the membership-meeting.