A Cardiff dentist has said he would like to travel to Calais next month to help provide refugees with dental treatment; Raid Ali, 42, was born in Iraq and moved to Wales in 1998 where he lives with his wife and three children. Ali has been a qualified dentist for almost twenty years and is planning to use these skills to help refugees in Calais with their dental health, as well as providing medical help at the French port.
Raid called his trip a ‘humanitarian thing’ and added that he ‘really wanted to help’ the people who are fleeing warzones and looking for a better life in the UK. He told walesonline ‘A lot of people have been collecting and donating items but I don’t think a lot of people can give what I can give, which is medical and dental care.’
Raid, who runs his own dental practice, said that he would be willing to travel to help people all over Europe if necessary and he explained that, as the refugee crisis worsens, he felt he should do something to help the people in need. He said ‘Even if there are already doctors at refugee camps around Europe there may be language barrier problems. I could be there to translate for them, especially medical terms which can be quite hard to communicate.’