They now have a reason to smile
Operation Smile, a non-profit, volunteer medical-services organisation, provides free reconstructive surgery to children and adults in over 60 countries. Its mission principle reads, "No child, in any country, should have to live with the pain and isolation caused by a correctable facial deformity."
NELSPRUIT – An international organisation providing free surgery to people living with cleft palates and lips will soon screen patients in the Lowveld.
Operation Smile, a non-profit, volunteer medical-services organisation, provides free reconstructive surgery to children and adults in over 60 countries. Its mission principle reads, “No child, in any country, should have to live with the pain and isolation caused by a correctable facial deformity.”
A highly qualified and credentialed Operation Smile volunteer team numbering around 40 from South Africa and around the world, will visit the city to provide free surgery to patients with cleft lips and palates at Rob Ferreira Hospital from November 16 to 21.
As part of the service, free transport, accommodation and food will be provided for patients for the duration of the mission. Each patient is also allowed to be accompanied by another person, whether it be a child’s parent or just a friend for moral support.
“We believe that each patient deserves that support system and that is why we provide transportation, food and accommodation for them too,” explains Ms Elise Farley, mission planner of Operation Smile Southern Africa (Ossa). “The organisation hopes to initiate programmes to assist with sustainability through training, while providing free surgery and related health care to the backlog of patients with facial deformities who otherwise would not have access to care.
They will focus on providing:
• Maximum participation of local medical and non-medical volunteers
• AHA Basic Life Support training for doctors and nurses
• AHA Paediatric Advanced Life Support training for doctors and nurses
• Helping Babies Breathe training for midwives on the safe delivery of babies.
Farley says cleft lips and palates occur in approximately one per 1 000 births. One in 10 babies dies before his/her first birthday, due to consequent malnutrition and infections, because they struggle immensely to feed. Children with clefts grow up with speech abnormalities and breathing problems. “They are usually ostracised, thought of as evil and forced to live a life of shame and isolation,” she says.
“We still have so many needs for our November mission in Nelspruit,” she says, “and we are so thankful to Valencia Wholesalers which, with Kingsbridge Communications, has donated 100 blankets to Ossa. “We are in dire need of further donations and we are appreciative of those we have received thus far,” she says.
Enquiries: Elise Farley at
elise.farley@operationsmile.org or visit
www.operationsmile.org.za
