5 Poor Mexican Children Receive Free Surgery

Five impoverished children and a woman from Mexico underwent free surgery Monday to correct foot deformities. The operations, mainly to correct clubfeet, were performed at Hawthorne Hospital in a joint venture between the hospital and Baja Project for Crippled Children.

Foot doctors and other health workers donated their time and skills, the hospital provided $35,000 in services and facilities, and businesses and community groups chipped in toys, clothes and food.

The nonprofit Baja Project for Crippled Children holds weekly clinics in Tijuana and Mexicali to treat and correct foot problems among the poor. About 500 patients are aided each year. Surgery is performed at least once a month in Mexico with supplies gathered in the United States. The latest patients were brought to this country to take advantage of more modern facilities, said podiatrist Carl R. Wagreich, director of the Hawthorne Hospital podiatry residence program.