Everyone has the right to a seat at the “table of the human race”. If they are excluded because they don’t look the same or can’t speak, that is “catastrophic”.

The words are those of Dr Gary Parker, a surgeon who has given the past three decades to the global charity Mercy Ships, serving some of the most underprivileged people in the world: those who can suffer for years because they do not have access to safe, timely, affordable surgery.

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