Health is a fundamental right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, meaning that all human beings have the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health. Unfortunately, social inequalities lead to an unequal distribution of wealth around the world, resulting in difficult access to health for hundreds of thousands of people.
Humanitarian cooperation seeks to remedy these inequalities and to ensure that all human beings can lead a dignified life with their fundamental rights covered. It is in this field where some of the best doctors in our country do their bit: they go to very needy areas of the world, sometimes even unsafe or dangerous, to help change the lives of many people by exercising their profession as health providers.
Solidarity surgeries in Gambia – Dr. Ester Lliró
An example of the altruistic actions of our Top Doctors is Dr. Esther Lliró, specialist in Plastic, Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery, who periodically travels to areas of Africa such as Gambia to operate on people who do not have access to these interventions. The doctor has been performing her solidarity surgeries since she met the NGO Cultivant Vida, which has been working in Gambia for several years. “In areas like this, the only access many people have to be able to see at night, cook or keep warm at home is by fire, with fires on the ground. This leads to many accidents, especially in children,” says Dr. Lliró, who frequently performs surgery for burns and scars, as well as for tumors and congenital malformations.
Operating in Tanzanian villages – Dr. Pedro Cavadas
Another story recently told on television is that of specialist surgeon Dr. Pedro Cavadas Rodríguez, who travels to very unprotected or under-resourced areas such as Tanzania to operate. There, the doctor travels by car through the most unprotected villages in northern Tanzania and picks up people who require surgery to operate altruistically; he commented in his interview in El Hormiguero how there are people who barely survive because they can hardly walk, and move as best they can with a cane, when a simple surgery changes their lives and they can go back to work and help their families: “In these areas, the daily dilemmas of these people are whether they are going to be able to eat today, or whether they are going to die of a disease that in Spain would not pose any danger.”
Dr. Cavadas is also known for his prestigious career as a surgeon and for being the first in Spain to perform a face transplant. Regarding his humanitarian action, he assures: “If you have the means and the tools to carry out humanitarian cooperation, and you understand what that means, you have to invent a very good reason not to do it”.
Restoring hearing to children all over the world – Drs. García-Ibáñez
Hypoacusis or deafness is also a pathology that can be solved in developed countries, while in areas with fewer resources on Earth it becomes a disability for many people, who do not have access to treatment. For this reason, Dr. Emilio García-Ibáñez and Dr. Luis García-Ibáñez, specialists in Otorhinolaryngology, started their foundation, through which they aim to “make it possible for people affected by deafness and with precarious economic resources to have access to the most advanced treatments and technologies”.
To this end, they have been working since 1996 in the altruistic implantation of cochlear implants and treatment of hearing loss to people without resources in Europe, Central America, South America and Asia, especially children.
Surgical training in areas with no access – Dr. Diego González Rivas
On the other hand, access to training and technological progress is also a problem in many areas of the world. Dr. Diego Gonzalez Rivas, a prestigious specialist in Thoracic Surgery in A Coruña, works in this field and is recognized worldwide for his pioneering technique “Uniportal VATS”, which makes it possible to remove lung tumors through an incision of only 3 cm. This technique, which has revolutionized the treatment of cancer, has gone around the world with him, as he travels altruistically all over the world to train professional surgeons. In addition to spreading his knowledge in the most prestigious hospitals worldwide, he goes to places with less access to scientific progress and medical training, such as Namibia, Patagonia, Cuzco and Jordan.