Interplast-Germany e. V. was founded in 1980 based on a model set up in the USA. Solely with the help of donations, volunteer doctors and nurses now help more than 60 relief efforts worldwide every year in their free time and have their flights paid. The association now has more than 1,800 active and passive members and is managed on a purely voluntary basis. Over 70,000 patients have had surgery to date since it was first set up.
The specialist doctors perform plastic-restorative operations on the patients, which enable the mostly young and poor patients to eat properly, speak, hold things and walk, so that they can be re-integrated in their village environment and are given the opportunity to provide for themselves in their later lives.
For an average of €150.00 (for medicines, OP materials, accommodation and meals, anaesthetics and bandages, airfares and visas), it is possible to complete the treatment of one patient. In addition, the charity attaches great importance to the training of local doctors and nurses. "Helping them to help themselves".
In 2012 Murtfeldt donated € 3,000.00, which was "raised" at a sporting event jointly contested by Murtfeldt employees. Interplast-Germany e.V. (www.interplast-germany.de) used this money to deploy doctors and nurses in the Mission Hospital in the town of Tosamaganga in the remote interior of the East African state of Tanzania. This enabled highly specialist restorative operations to be performed on more than 30 children with congenital facial abnormalities, known as cleft lip, and with disfiguring serious burn scars that were impairing the patients' lives, enabling them to return to a "normal" life.