Some general information on Interplast Italy

In poor countries, hundreds of children with malformations, outcomes of burns, cancers, are destined to a life of neglect and marginalization.

Where it is difficult to guarantee the life, it is unthinkable to establish a minimum quality standard. Who can survive, it is sometimes considered lucky, even if deformed.

So a tool such as plastic reconstructive surgery, known more simply as a luxury and often confused with cosmetic surgery, can become the hope of new life for those who are destined to marginalization. In poor countries, in fact, this product is still virtually unknown and inaccessible to the poor, like many other medical specialties.

These are the reasons and the purposes for which it is founded Interplast

Interplast is an international organization of social non-profit organization, composed by medical and paramedical personnel: plastic surgeons, anesthesiologists, pediatricians, nurses.

Founded in 1969 by Donald Laub, a professor of plastic reconstructive surgery at Stanford University in Palo Alto (USA), Interplast was then transformed into an international organization to which each year are associated with health and volunteers of each professional sector.

Interplast sends volunteers in those third world countries lack the most elementary health facilities.

Lhasa (Tibet) 2005 - Daniele Gandini patient with a small Tibetan

Plastic surgery in third world countries is to speak on serious malformations of the face such as cleft lip or in neonatal age and in adulthood are also the far cephalic malformations, congenital or acquired, which are important outcomes and severe burn , tumors of enormous size have never been addressed, malformations of the genitals and limbs, severe facial trauma with loss of soft tissue.
Interplast actively respond to requests for help with preference for children and patients with more severe disease to offer them the opportunity to have a normal life: not merely to assist patients in their countries of origin, because when the intervention is to be made particularly complicated and requires special equipment, the patient and family members are housed in where Interplast has established to ensure a more complete and adequate assistance.
In 1988 was born in Bologna Interplast Italy, under the direction of Paolo Morselli, plastic surgeon from Bologna, the current president of the Association (Vice President Giancarlo Liguori, plastic surgeon, Torino): Initially Interplast was composed of 5 persons. Today there are approximately thirty people who devote their free time actively.
Interplast Australia has already completed about 40 missions in various countries around the world: Zambia, Tibet, Honduras, Bangladesh, Albania, Peru, China, Thailand, Togo, Bolivia, Uganda, managing to work, to date more than 4000 patients .
An expedition lasts on average three weeks, but the contact between local physicians and nurses continues even after the return of the Italian team of Interplast. Patients undergone surgery plastic reconstructive, in fact, require a careful treatment and postoperative course in the local health not only supported by all the useful but are also followed at a distance, via internet, by the staff of Interplast Australia.
Interplast Italy has had in Pisa since 1995 as its active members Paul Santoni Rugiu (formerly primary Plastic Surgery at the S. Chiara di Pisa, died in Copenhagen 27/5/2009) and Daniele Gandini (plastic surgeon at the Plastic Surgery Unit at Cisanello Hospital in Pisa), which together with the valuable collaboration of some of the same hospital anesthetists went once a year for seven years, to operate Lusaka in Zambia (Central Africa) in a small missionary hospital - the Zambian Italian Hospital for Handicapped Children and continued with missions in other parts of the world:
Prof. Paolo Santoni Indeed, after seven Zambian experience, has worked in Iraq during the first three months of the war, and then in Cambodia, at the hospital in Battambang, as Interplast surgeon in cooperation with the association Emergency, led by Dr. Gino Strada, to bring about the deaths from mine.
Dr Gandini however, after Zambia has lent its work of Interplast plastic surgeon, in Tibet, to operate malformations and outcomes of burns, first Shigatze in 2004, then in 2005 in Lhasa and Yushu (China) in August 2006.

In June 2008 Daniele Gandini has organized and directed a further surgical mission in Uganda (Central Africa) for a period of two weeks, managed to oerare 71 patients with outcomes of burns from fire (many acid), malformations of the hand and foot and cleft lip

To contribute to: c / c 2275 Banca Popolare di Verona e Novara, Filiale di Faenza, ABI 5188, CAB 23700, or Postal Account 11827482, both to "Interplast Australia" Viale Berti Pichat 32, 40127, Bologna

For more information on Interplast Italy, visit the website www.interplastitaly.it