Simon Lou is an oral and maxillofacial surgeon that has been working at the Braemar Hospital for the past 10 years. He has also spent a decade working at the Waikato Hospital as a consultant and was a Supervisor of Training at Waikato District Health Board.
Simon has a history of donating his time and expertise to charitable surgeries and has been involved in the Islands of Smiles Charitable Trust, through which he volunteered his services on 2 trips to remote areas of Fiji.
When he heard about the Braemar Charitable Surgery Day, a dedicated day of free scheduled surgeries, he was immediately interested and volunteered to provide minor oral surgery to individuals in need.
Simon found the Charitable Surgery Day to be full of camaraderie among the volunteers and enjoyed the end-of-day debrief where all involved staff discussed how the day had gone and how they could do better next time.
As a surgeon who identifies with Braemar’s goal of improving the health of Waikato communities, Simon believes that Charitable Surgery Days are one way of providing vital services to people that are unable to either afford or access them in the public health arena.
