A UAE charity is providing life-changing surgery to ten people for free.
Operation Smile UAE will operate on the patients – ranging in age from six months to 39 years – who are affected by cleft lips or cleft palates.
A team of 32 medical volunteers, including surgeons, anaesthetists, nurses and paediatricians, will donate their time for free during the initiative at the Healthpoint centre in the capital from June 4 to 6.
It is being conducted in co-operation with the clinic and the Department of Health-Abu Dhabi.
As part of the mission, patients operated on in 2020 will get a checkup.
Tomorrow's free surgery comes after a series of screening sessions were held across the UAE to determine who needed the surgery.
Operation Smile UAE was established in 2011 and is a branch of the international charity.
Globally, Operation Smile was founded in 1982 and has provided more than 240,000 free surgeries for people born with cleft lip, cleft palate and other facial deformities.
It is estimated that, worldwide, a child is born every three minutes with a cleft — about one in every 500 to 750 births.