Rachel Bhatia

Humanity Direct

Humanity Direct funds low-cost, high impact surgery for children in developing countries. Of the 243 million operations performed annually just 3.5% of them happen in the world's poorest countries and a far smaller percentage are performed on children. As a result congenital anomalies go unrepaired, treatable injuries result in lifelong disabilities, and children die of easily correctable surgical problems such as incarcerated hernias. A lack of skilled surgeons, delays in treatment such as seeing alternative and cheaper ‘healers', the cost of reaching a medical facility and being charged a fee to see a doctor all compound the problems of getting children the life-changing, and often life-saving, medical care they need. Humanity Direct has now funded over 500 operations from skin grafts to neurosurgery as well as surgery for hydrocephalus, hernias, burns, obstetric conditions and cataracts – ranked by the World Bank as among the most cost-effective of all health interventions in low-income countries. We have over 400 more patients that need their operations funding and could fund many more as in many of the areas where we work there is no access to any medical care at that level. Our purpose is to help plug this global paediatric surgery gap by directly funding those basic surgical procedures that could save millions of children's lives. As well as saving lives funding surgery also contributes towards tackling global poverty as our work prevents families from getting into debt and poverty. We are unique in that every penny donated is directly spent on surgery. We have limited overheads and any that we do incur are paid for privately. Donations pay for medical supplies, the actual surgery, hospital stay, post-operative care and where necessary transport to and from hospital. Where possible donors will get an update on the patient post surgery so they can see the impact that their donation has had on that child's life.