Issam al-Rassi is a Lebanese surgeon and is currently dedicating one day every week to treat Syrian and Palestinian refugees for free. Dr El-Rassi is the Chief of Pediatrics Cardiac Surgery at the Children’s Heart Center at AUBMC and visits Hammoud hospital in Saida once per week. He refuses to leave babies untreated because of lack of money as he “sees his work with refugees as a matter of responsibility”.

He no longer wants to see babies die while their parents are looking for money. Quoting him, “We cannot ask a father living in a tent… to pay $3,000, it’s a huge sum of money,” he says. “For a Lebanese middle-class person, it’s the salary for three months.”

We need more doctors like al-Rassi and more initiatives like this one. Hundreds of thousands of children and families are paying the price of Syria’s ongoing war and it is everyone’s duty to help out when possible.

You can read the full story [here].