For 34 years, volunteer medical teams from Japan have kept returning to rural Vietnam for the same reason, to provide free cleft lip and palate surgery to children and adults who could not otherwise afford it.

The Japan Cleft Palate Foundation has traveled to Vietnam every year since 1993. This spring, the nonprofit sent 58 volunteer doctors, dentists, nurses and medical staff from across Japan to Nguyen Dinh Chieu General Hospital in Vinh Long Province, about 90 kilometres south of Ho Chi Minh City.

The team spent nine days evaluating patients and performing surgery.

Foundation executive director Professor Nagato Natsume said the annual trip had become deeply personal.

“This is my second hometown,” he told The Japan Times. “Every time I come here, I feel like I’ve come home.”

Over the past 34 years, Japanese surgeons have performed more than 3,000 cleft surgeries in Vietnam.

Their arrival each year draws families from across the region. On the first day of patient consultations, nearly 50 families gathered in a makeshift clinic set up in a hospital hallway, hoping their children would be selected for surgery.

Among the patients helped this year was a three-month-old baby boy. During pregnancy, his mother, Le Thibe Trang, learned her unborn son had a cleft lip and palate.

Members of her husband’s family urged her to end the pregnancy, but she decided to continue.

“I wanted to give birth no matter what,” she said through tears. “I was worried because we couldn’t afford the treatment. I’m deeply thankful that these Japanese doctors came and performed surgery free of charge.”

As the mission ended, Natsume said the work was still guided by the same goal.

“We want to provide support so that more children can grow up feeling glad they were born.”

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