Dr Tamer Kahil is making his first trip to Turkey, but this is no holiday.
DR. TAMER KAHIL: That's the Australian aid, eh? And another one.
The Syrian-born Australian orthopaedic surgeon is bringing with him much-needed antibiotics. They're for a rehabilitation centre he's helping set up for people hurt in the Syrian conflict.
DR TAMER KAHIL: What is happening in there is really horrible and beyond belief, a Government kills its own people. I don't feel comfortable just sitting doing nothing, just watching the news and counting the number of civilians killed. That's horrible.
He has an injury to the femoral nerve, and he has lost about....
Medical fees in Turkey are beyond the reach of most Syrian refugees. Some of these patients will need years of costly rehabilitation.
DR TAMER KAHIL (Translation): Yes, yes. Now push it down. Push it down, push it down. You can't. Push this one down.
That's where Dr Tamer's clinic fits in. All treatment here is free.
DR TAMER KAHIL: The function there is we have rehabilitation for those patients, postoperatively, long-term treatment, for instance, no matter how good the operation is, if you don't follow it up with effective physiotherapy and other modalities of treatment, then the operation will fail.
Patient after patient is brought to him, recovering from appalling injuries.
DR TAMER KAHIL: Here is a sniper injury that came from the back. Shot to kill. This patient has been injured several gunshots, as you see, lots and lots of operations in the abdomen.
This man doesn't want to be identified because he's a rebel fighter, but there are civilians here, too.
DR TAMER KAHIL: Muazzat has been injured by a blast. That's costed him his lower limbs. It’s a miserable situation, he was going to see his sister and look what happened to him.
As the conflict rages on in Syria, there's no let-up to the killing of civilians.
MAN (Translation): These here.... all of them are children. All of them are. What is the crime of these innocent children?
These images were released a few days ago from Houla, a suburb of Homs, the heart of the uprising. UN observers say 108 people were killed, 49 of them children. The Opposition says the regime is responsible.
In the face of such atrocities, thousands continue to stream across the border from Syria. Many have ended up here in the city of Tripoli in Northern Lebanon. The injured say it's simply not safe to seek treatment in their homeland.
MAN (Translation): All the hospitals are all under the Syrian control. We don’t dare go there.
In a Tripoli hospital, I meet this man from Homs. He says he's lucky to be alive.
MAN (Translation): We were delivering bread aid because Baba Amr was a siege. As we were delivering aid to the houses, a rocket fell on the street. A young man was hit by the shrapnel, I helped by carrying him, a Shilka Tank went past, an anti-aircraft. It shot at us and I got hit in the legs. The guy who was hit by rocket shrapnel was martyred.
He has severe shrapnel injuries to his leg. He tells me how others helped him on his extraordinary escape to Lebanon.
MAN (Translation): We got out of Baba Amr through an underground , they opened up an underground tunnel. I was on the road for a week, moving between villages. They'd have us in the truck and would put furniture on top - sofas, chairs - so that the army would not see us.
WOMAN (Translation): It was so sudden, I just said 'God is Great.'
Fearing that her life might be at risk, this woman asks not to be identified. She lost her legs and witnessed her family killed during the shelling of Homs.
WOMAN (Translation): My daughter was asleep in my arms, she was one year and one-month old she was martyred instantly, and so was the boy who was 3 years and two months old. His leg was cut off - only the bones were there. His face, the eyes were covered in blood. My husband....his abdomen... his intestines were out. His eyes were closed and covered in blood.
REPORTER: So doctor why can’t I show your face on camera?
‘DR AMR’ : Yes, I'm scared about my family in Syria, so, you know - our regime is very, very murder people.
This doctor, who didn't want to give his name, fled Syria two months ago.
‘DR AMR’ (Translation): The doctors are persecuted, they can only work in secret… sometimes they avoid their medical duties for fear of arrest. Anyone who helps another who is sick or injured... it is regarded as treason by this regime.
He shows me the brutal reality of being targeted by the regime.
‘DR AMR’ (Translation): These are the scars from the beating and electric shocks in this area here. Burns. I had broken bones too -here too, the same thing. All this area was burnt and I had broken bones.
I ask him what he thinks about the President of Syria, Bashar al Assad who is himself a doctor.
‘DR AMR’ (Translation): What is a doctor? A doctor is compassionate, big hearted, accomodating towards people, empathises with people. He might have other things on, like a dinner, but he will drop everything to help people, not to kill them.
Only kilometres away from the border with Syria in the Bekaa Valley, I meet another Australian doctor helping treat Syrian refugees. Dr Phillipa Boulle is an emergency medical co-ordinator with Medecins Sans Frontieres. She's now a familiar face in the town Irsal.
DR PHILLIPA BOULLE: It's different to working I guess in a refugee camp where you have a confined population, here the population is living amongst the community.
How is everything going?
But Dr Boulle is working on wounds you can't see, for the past three months overseeing mental health treatment for Syrians traumatised by the horrors of the conflict.
DR PHILLIPA BOULLE: I remember a pregnant woman who came to us when she'd been in hiding in Homs, people could only go out during the day, to access medical care. She'd witnessed people, women giving birth and she'd witnessed where the baby had not survived because they'd not been able to access medical care, because it was at night and they could not go and access it. She understandably had a huge amount of anxiety and fear about the safety of herself and her unborn child.
People are coming over with acute reactions to what they have witnessed and then people of course can have more prolonged difficulty with depression and anxiety. Having memories of what they witnessed, having lots of difficulty with sleeping.
For some, the trauma of their experiences only hardens their resolve to continue fighting.
MAN 2(Translation): What did you want to do? What did you do before?
SOLDIER (Translation): I was one of the protestors. They started suppressing us with batons and electric rods. Then there were splits in the army so we joined the Free Army. We carried arms with the Free Army. We fought them the same as they fought us.
MAN 2 (Translation): How did you get your weapons?
SOLDIER (Translation): How I got the weapon? I had a car, so I sold it and bought a gun.
MAN 2 (Translation): If you get better, what will you do?
SOLDIER (Translation): God willing, if I get better whether it was just 15% or 20% I will go back to Syria to fight.
DR TAMER KAHIL: The people of Syria have made their decision, and they said they want freedom, and there is no return.
REPORTER: There's no turning back?
DR TAMER KAHIL: No. Definitely not.
Reporter/Camera
YAARA BOU MELHEM
Producer
VICTORIA STROBL
Fixer
ISSAM ABDALLAH
Editor
NICK O’BRIEN
Original Music Composed by VICKI HANSEN