Critical Surgery: Changing Lives

Every year 20 volunteer medics travel to Ethiopia with the Facing Africa charity, to perform reconstructive facial surgery on patients with little or no health care facilities. The first of two documentaries about their work focuses on 22-year-old Zinash, who has a tumour that has been growing for more than six years. It has now taken over her lower jaw and will kill her if not treated. The Facing Africa medics are her only hope - but this is the first time they have undertaken such a complex operation. Can they save Zinash?

Twenty-year-old Hulu Sintayehu, from the poorest region of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, has a tumour growing into the side of her neck, deep into her blood vessels. The surgeons from Facing Africa have not seen this type of tumour before, presenting them with a highly complicated operation - and if they run out of anything, they have no spares, so they have to think on their feet and come up with a plan B.