Northern Iraq may not at first glance seem like the ideal place to travel to twice a year, but for a growing number of North East medics this is a much-sought opportunity.

The Newcastle Gateshead Medical Volunteers are now an increasingly important part of the health system in Kurdish Iraq.

The orthopaedic surgery team put together by Dr Deiary Kader now regularly helps people who in some cases have gone their entire life without much-needed medical treatment.

In his day job, for which he also offers up valuable volunteer time, Dr Kader is a consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead.

But after almost 20 years in the UK, he says he wants to give something back to his native Kurdistan.

His small team first set off in 2010, making two trips that year, and volunteers have repeated that process ever since. Those earlier trips saw the team work with only basic equipment, using home drill kits to help meet the various medical needs.

Since then they have built up some of the best clinics in the region to provide the type of surgery few in Kurdistan would otherwise be able to afford, a service provided for free by his small team.

“These are people who are destitute, they are very poor and just could never afford the £10,000 needed for a knee replacement,” Dr Kader said.

“We see out there some of what we might see here in the UK, but a lot is related to the situation there.

“We see military guys with injuries from war, while the other problem we see a lot is the consequences of the bad health system.

“We see people who have, for example, dislocated a hip as a baby and no one has recognised it or treated it. They have suffered from childhood and come to us in their mid-20s and limp badly, are in pain and suffer a devastating life. We can offer a chance to change that. It’s that potential treatment that over here is more routine. We sawa lady who hadn’t walked for five years due to arthritis.” He added: “At the beginning we did not have much to work with when we went out there – we couldn’t just fly out the equipment. “But over the years the local charities have recognised that we are here for the long term and they have started buying stuff for us.”

Every trip out there saves local groups £200,000, with the Kurdish charities helping costs for nurses and some others. Those nurses and doctors originally include just a few from the North East, but Dr Kader now has frequent support from Oxford, London and across the country. Indeed, medics are lining up to get involved despite the hard work. A typical trip sees 46 major operations in just seven days. So far the organisation has done 200 operations of the hip and knee joint and seen 1,200 patients at the clinic .

“At first it was difficult to get people to agree to go, because of what they have heard about Iraq,” Dr Kader said. “And it was a big responsibility for me, to take 10 people over there and be responsible for them, when 50 miles away from where we were there was some pretty bad bombing. “But we have had reassurances from the regional government that there is nothing to be concerned about. “Now we go there, and there are no signs of insecurity or problems, we go and there are no scares, everything goes smoothly. “So now we have a waiting list for people to go, with Continued interest from the Freeman, the RVI, from Wansbeck and elsewhere in the region.

“That’s partly as a result of the help we get both out there and here, where in Parliament we have the support of MP Dave Anderson and (parliamentary assistant) Gary Kent.” Support in Kurdistan comes from the Nechirvan Health Aid Office and Barzani Charity Foundation, which provide social, cultural and humanitarian aid in Kurdistan to the people who need it most.

That means working without discrimination and regardless of a person’s belief or ethnicity to help rebuild the shattered lives of the many thousands of displaced this devastated society. Dr Kader is also a professor of sports science at Northumbria University, and tries to give as much of his time locally as he has internationally. The doctor has done 40 free theatre lists for the NHS in the past year, offering up his own time on what would otherwise be days off to help keep NHS bills down. He said: “I think charity begins at home.

I just feel that if I am doing something for Kurdistan, I am obliged to do something for the country that has trained me, that has given me all I have. “It’s unusual I know; a lot of people think I am crazy. But it’s a nice thing I can do, an example maybe someone else will follow one day. It’s very fulfilling work.” His work out there has earned him frequent praise, including from Blaydon MP Dave Anderson, who has seen the team in action in Kurdistan in his role as secretary of the cross-party parliamentary group on Kurdistan. Mr Anderson said: “Deiary has done wonders in inspiring fellow medics in the North East to put their expertise to good use in Kurdistan and enjoy themselves into the bargain.

“They have brought much relief to dozens of people who needed hip and knee operations and have literally helped them stand on their own two feet.” Mr Anderson, who will table a Commons motion saluting Deiary and the initiative, added: “The Kurdistan region is increasingly able to use its new-found wealth to provide better public services but having been isolated for so long and oppressed by Saddam Hussein, they need British expertise.

“The wider story is that there are many other trade and investment opportunities for North East businesses in this safe, hospitable and pro-British place.”

They had gathered to support and raise funds for Kurdish born orthopaedic surgeon, Professor Deiary Kader who founded the Newcastle-Gateshead Medical Volunteers to bring much needed medical relief to Kurds back in Erbil.

Deiary has mobilised dozens of his fellow health professionals to use their holiday time over the last three years to visit Kurdistan to carry out dozens of knee and hip operations.

The Kurdistan Region has developed in leaps and bounds in the last decade with fast increasing disposable income and improving public services such as near continuous electricity.

But the health system is lagging behind and Deiary and his team are helping plug the gaps and transforming the lives of people many of whom have been housebound and immobile for years.

The dinner was attended by the Lord Mayor of Newcastle who gave an official welcome to the efforts of the volunteers.

I delivered greetings from the APPG while the KRG High Representative to the UK, Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, also sent a message of support.

She praised “another excellent year of service and dedication to the care of the people of Kurdistan” which is “remarkable in the high standard of care and professionalism its members offer while working voluntarily in Kurdistan during their own holiday time.”

Bayan added that “The people of Kurdistan in Iraq have suffered greatly over the decades – from war, displacement, chemical bombardment and torture. Our people have suffered in other ways too. Under Saddam’s dictatorship, Iraq was a country under siege. Travel was restricted and there was little transfer of knowledge so that many advances in medical technology, techniques and knowledge bypassed us. Today we are trying to catch up and we are delighted and grateful that the Newcastle/Gateshead Medical Volunteers is prepared not only to provide medical help but also to share knowledge.”

Poignantly, she said that the work of the NGMV “is making a difference to many people’s lives and that is something that every one of you should feel proud of. None of you needs to go to Kurdistan, and none of you has to do these operations, but the fact that you do is a testament to your compassion and generosity.”

Talk about dialogue and links between countries often seems academic and distant from the concerns of ordinary people. The NGMV does much to turn this into a story of human beings connecting with each other and enjoying themselves into the bargain. Deiary and his team deserve great credit for all they have done and plan to do. The day will come when the health service in Kurdistan can stand on its own two feet in knee and hip operations, so to speak, but the achievements of this remarkable initiative will live forever.

Over the last two years, the charity has recruited more than a hundred health professionals of whom sixty have visited Erbil in the Kurdistan Region. These members come from a wide range of health disciplines: surgeons, anaesthetists, Junior Doctors, nurses and a Physiotherapist.

They work with the Barzani Charity Foundation and the Nechirvan Health Aid Office as well as Zheen Hospital staff.

Their first exploratory trip was in April 2010 during which time two consultants and a Registrar saw 40 patients.

They have now notched up six visits in two years and a thousand people and performed more than 100 operations.

They have also taught Kurdish health professionals. They have exchanged views and information on issues such as pre-assessment procedures, keeping patient information, nursing skills and practice, theatre etiquette.

They also talked about key policy areas for health services such as public-private partnerships, medical regulation, quality control and training.

Deiary told the APPG that the Kurdish health system currently gives a lower status to nurses and that there is a major pay discrepancy between them and doctors, whereas nurses are the mainstay of the UK health system.

We hope that such discussions help lift the quality of the health service in the Kurdistan Region, which was badly neglected under Saddam Hussein and which still lags behind although there is a widespread appreciation that infrastructure and investment have to be improved and increased. There is a need to improve primary health care and preventative medicine to reduce the footfall in more expensive hospital settings as well as reducing over-prescribing – similar debates to the UK.

The traffic isn’t all one way. The UK health professionals gain a great deal from the experience themselves. It improves their understanding of diversity and acceptance of other cultures, their knowledge of global health issues, improves team spirit by sharing a common goal and allows them to acquire new skills.

Such sterling work is undertaken in their own time and saves the KRG much money. The APPG applauds their work and is seeking to make sure that its value is recognised more widely as an example of how people-to-people co-operation can work wonders for the UK and the Kurdistan Region, as it builds its health system almost from scratch.

Dave Anderson MP.

Newcastle Journal – A group of medical professionals is regularly jetting from Newcastle to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq as part of a wave of interest in this staunchly pro-british place with a potentially pivotal role in the Middle East.

The local group is spearheaded by Kurdish-born Professor Deiary Kader who has lived here for 19 years. Like so many others he was forced into exile to escape the brutality of the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. He now wants to give something back to his homeland.

I have myself visited the Kurdistan Region twice in the past six years and am the secretary of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG). The APPG provides a bridge of friendship to a region which is recovering from dirt-poor conditions and genocide.

The most notorious example of genocide was the attack in 1988 on the town of Halabja where 5,000 men, women and children were killed by chemical weapons such as mustard gas.

Iraqi Kurdistan’s fragile existence was saved by the British decision to establish a no-fly zone in 1991. Saddam was intent on wiping the Kurds off the face of the earth and may have succeeded without British intervention.

Since Saddam’s fall in 2003, the Kurds have been able to build a safe, stable, democratic and increasingly prosperous society. They have plentiful supplies of oil, gas, minerals, agriculture and their living standards and services are improving every day.

But their health service is poor. Deiary says that his sister prays every day that she doesn’t fall ill. The APPG recently visited the main teaching hospital in the capital, Erbil. Parts of it were shoddy and unhygienic, but refurbished floors were much cleaner if somewhat basic.

The main problem is that they were almost completely cut off from the rest of the world and are now trying to catch up on modern methods, medicines and treatments.

They are keen on using external experience and expertise not least from the UK and have, for instance, connections with Sheffield Hallam University. But Deiary and his colleagues cannot wait for all that to filter through and are helping fill the gaps now. They have spent thousands of pounds of their own money to go to Kurdistan where they carry out life-saving and life-enhancing operations which would not be available otherwise, or at prices beyond the means of many ordinary Kurds.