The Clarós Foundation completes its 111th solidary project and completes its 20th anniversary gala
Pedro Clarós, full academician and vicepresident of the Governing Board of the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED), has led a new humanitarian mission of the Clarós Foundation, which he founded and chairs, and this time has had Gabon as a destination. It’s the 111th mission of the Foundation and the 5th that it carries out in this small African republic, with less than two million inhabitants.
The expedition was carried out between June 1 and 9 and had ten volunteers: two anesthetists, two vascular surgeons, two junior otolaryngologists, an operating theater nurse, a hearing care professional and a medical coordinator, directed by Clarós himself. They performed 60 surgical interventions consisting of the treatment of craniofacial malformations (especially cleft lip and cleft palate), facial and neck tumors, goiter, facial traumatic pathology and arteriovenous fistulas for dialysis patients and thus prolong their life.
“When we started with the missions of the Foundation in the 90s in India, we never thought that the humanitarian aid we were going to spend would be over one hundred, and this has been the mission number 111 -explains Clarós-. Each time we return from a new mission we realize the good that we can do when we unite to help the unprotected. Being born in a developed country is a luck that not everyone can have, that’s why those of us who have had this happiness have to share it”.
The vicepresident of RAED details the Foundation’s relationship with Gabon: “Ten years ago, the family of president Omar Bongo, in the terminal phase, visited Barcelona, and his sons, the current president Ali Bongo and his sister Pascualina Bongo, proposed us to allocate our efforts in this country. With this have already been five times we have visited Libreville and each time with more and better results. How can it be that Gabon with a small population and oil and wood wealth has a much needed population? It’s the question that we all ask ourselves, but without knowing its answer, it isn’t our mission the economic policy of a country. We go there where we can be useful and help with our hands and surgical techniques”.
In 2020 the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Clarós Foundation will be celebrated and for this a great benefit concert is being finalized at the Liceo in Barcelona, in which great figures of the lyric will participate, such as Ainhoa Arteta, Javier Camarena, Jaume Aragall and other lyrical singers, as well as Joan Manel Serrat and bands such as Love of Lesbian.
Magazine 19 of the Clarós Foundation – Gabon 2019
