Spared a lifetime of bullying and isolation.

This is 3 year old Gerber-Michael. He was born with a problem affecting his urinary tract leaving him in pain and distress and unable to go to the toilet properly. When a child starts school with a defect like this it often leads to isolation and bullying as they can't urinate standing up like their friends, and frequently have accidents.

When he was a baby his family travelled for three days on buses from their home in the North of Ethiopia to the Menelik hospital in Addis Ababa for him to be seen by a doctor.

Unfortunately, at that time there were no surgical instruments in the hospital small enough for him to have the operation he so desperately needed. The family travelled home again and had been living with his condition ever since.

Kids Operating Room recently installed and equipped an operating room at the Menelik hospital with the instruments needed to operate on young children like Gerber. The paediatric surgeon remembered the case and set about tracking down the family.

Again, for three days Gerber and his family travelled on buses from their home to the hospital in the capital. This time the surgery went ahead.

The paediatric surgeon at the hospital remembered the case and tracked down the family, knowing he was now able to do the operation.

Dad, Eshetu told us he is so relieved that his precious boy will now have a chance to have a normal life and concentrate on just being a little boy. Gerber loves to play with his friends, he loves his Dad and is now looking forward to starting school. Eshetu expressed his happiness that the operating room was clean, staff were kind and Gerber liked the brightly coloured Kids Operating Room animal pictures on the wall. Kids Operating Room exists to give more children like Gerber access to surgery that can truly change the course of their life.