Mr Riaz is preparing for his next trip to Gujrat, Pakistan, in a few days’ time. This will be the first of the bi-annual trips for 2018.

As we fast approach OPSA's next cleft lip and palate surgery mission, we wanted to find out what it's like to spend an hour in surgery with Mr Riaz, so here goes...

Mr Riaz is delighted to have been selected to serve on the BFIRST committee for a tenure of 3 years, commencing 1st July 2017.

Mr Riaz and the UK team have just returned from another successful free surgery cleft camp at the purpose-built Cleft Hospital in Gujrat Pakistan.

Both girls were born with cleft lips and palates, caused when the roof of the mouth and the lips fail to fuse together properly in the womb, causing disfigurement, speech problems and often malnutrition because children with the condition struggle to feed properly.

The Welsh parents of a baby girl born with a cleft lip and palate have travelled 6,000 miles this weekend to help a family facing an identical ordeal in a country without a national health service.

IT is not yet midday and, already, the temperature is marching past 30 degrees outside Sialkot Airport, opened 10 years to the relief of travellers spared the gridlock of Islamabad or Lahore, traffic jostles for position.

During a recent trip to Multan, Pakistan (December 2016) Mr Riaz, on behalf of OPSA of which he is a trustee, was delighted to be able to hand over a Doppler Machine to the Burns Unit in Multan, Pakistan.

Mr Riaz and the OPSA team handing over the "Versa Jet" to Dr Naheed Ahmed Chaudhry, head of Burns Unit in Multan, Pakistan for the treatment of burn patients on 1 March 2016.

Presented 'Gujrat' Cleft Nose correction technique at University of Health  Sciences, Lahore , Pakistan during an international seminar on Cleft Surgery in March 2016. 

A small team made up of surgeons, nurses, trainees and anaesthetists travelled to The Cleft Hospital, Gujrat, Pakistan, seeing more than 350 patients and operating on more than 80 children during the visit.

The Overseas Plastic Surgery Appeal (OPSA) is a registered charity that provides free surgery procedures to underprivileged children and young adults.

Surgeons from East Yorkshire have been in Pakistan operating on children whose families cannot afford surgery. Health reporter Emma Wright speaks to charity leader Nick Hart.

n a place where life rarely grants a second chance, physical deformity can alter everything from social status to marriage prospects. That is why hope, when it does come, is so greatly prized.

More than 100 children with cleft lip or palate have registered for the free of cost surgery offered by a private hospital in Gujrat.