A plastic surgery campaign under the Namibian Medical Outreach Services is in progress at the Walvis Bay District hospital.

The initiative is aimed at enhancing access to health care and addressing specific medical needs within the community.

The campaign, which started on Monday, will ensure that patients receive plastic surgery until 11 October.

Dr. Ali Mbuyi, Senior Medical Officer at Khorixas, explained that many of the patients who are booked for surgery have abnormal fat distribution in their bodies, which results in chronic pain.

"It's all about the fat distribution of these patients; does it cause a medical problem for this patient? If the answer is yes then it falls within the scope of this kind of activity, so if a patient has much larger breasts such that they have to adjust their posture to the point that they can't stand up straight then it may have, because the skeleton was not designed for that kind of weight distribution. So, it can lead to patients developing some kind of back pain; it can be upper back pain or lower back pain depending on where it's taking place. So the main purpose is to correct that one to help the patients alleviate the problem that weight distribution is causing."

Another Senior Medical Officer Dr Augusto Gawanab, added that due to a number of shack fires in the Erongo Region, some patients requested reconstructive burn surgery for their children and themselves.

He stressed that the campaign will not assist people who merely want cosmetic surgery like the popular Brazilian Butt Lift, BBL.

"BBL is for a person who wants to look a certain way, which I think is not a problem but definitely not for this campaign. This one is for medical only, and that is just to show that we have the skills in Namibia, and the ministry is making sure that everyone is assisted with such."

Namibian Medical Outreach Services is an initiative for different disciplines of medicine, and it is available to all regions after identifying the needs of the community.