A TRIO of medics from East Lancashire today spoke about their mission to India to give deprived children life-transforming surgery.

Blackburn Royal Infirmary consultant anaesthetist Dr George Teturswamy and Accrington nurses Carol and Michael Ward carried out operations in Mysore in the southern India on children with cleft lip and palate problems.

During the eight-day visit they, and the ten other health professionals from around the country in the team put together by Dr Teturswamy, changed the lives of around 30 children and left money for local doctors carry out another ten operations.

Dr Teturswamy, known popularly as Dr George, said the trip was a tremendous success and children aged between ten months and 16 years were treated.

One case of a three-year-old boy was particularly emotional, he said, because the parents had suffered a tragedy with another child.

He said: "There was one family brought their three-year-old son with a cleft lip who needed an operation but his older brother had died undergoing the procedure at another hospital in India.

"There were tears in their eyes as they asked us to operate on him because they were scared.

But they knew he needed to have the surgery to improve his life. It was a complete success.

"We did a lot of follow-up operations on people we had seen the year before and the transformation was amazing and so pleasing.

"One girl came back for palate correction who we had performed cleft lip surgery on the year before. Once she had a three-inch gap in her upper lip and now she had just a tiny scar -- it's so rewarding."

Now, Dr George is about to start raising money for next year's trip to the Holdsworth Mission Hospital, which celebrates its centenary in 2004, and he is looking to perform more operations than ever.

He got involved in the Mysore project through his membership of The Rotary Club of Blackburn Borough.

He read about Holdsworth Hospital around ten years ago in the Rotarians' international magazine and since then, he, Michael and Carol, who both used to work at Queen's Park Hospital, Blackburn -- have volunteered to help with surgery and take consignments of redundant NHS equipment.

Dr George became increasingly saddened at the sight of children who desperately needed cleft lip and palate surgery.

In October 2001, he organised a team including head and neck surgeon Alistair Smyth from Leeds, another anaesthetist Dr Michael Tremlett and a team of nurses, to fly over to Mysore.

Working gruelling 12-hour sessions, they performed 40 operations in seven days, transforming the life of patients aged between seven months and 17 years.

During this trip, which costs around £15,000 and has been paid for by themselves, they will check on patients' progress, perform more surgery on new sufferers and take over more equipment.

The money was raised with the help of the three Blackburn Rotary Clubs and those in Accrington and Darwen, fund-raising by Michael and Carol, a £5,000 donation from fibre optics maker Keymed, and £2,500 raised by Dr Venkat Raman, an anaesthetist from Wigan.

Michael, now a freelance operating department practitioner and Carol, an anaesthetist and nurse at Gisburn Park Hospital, are married and live in Baxenden.

Michael said: "These operations have changed their lives completely. If they don't get help they can end up being outcasts or being used for begging purposes."