Kohima, November 15 (MExN): A team of doctors from Smile Train Shija Cleft Project, Imphal will be available for a free mega surgery camp for cleft lips and palates, at Oking Hospital & Research Clinic, Kohima from November 19 to 22.
The camp will be held under the Smile Train Shija Cleft Project – Mission Nagaland, 42nd Phase, a press release informed on Monday.
Smile Train was founded in 1998 and has since, grown into the world’s largest cleft-focused global NGO with its headquarter based in New York, USA and helping more than 1,500,000 desperately poor children with clefts, training thousands of medical professionals and establishing hundreds of programs in the world’s poorest countries, the release stated.
Smile Train Shija Cleft Project- Mission Nagaland, was formally launched by the then Governor of Nagaland K Sankaranarayanan on February 11, 2009. It is a joint initiative of Smile Train Shija Cleft Project, Imphal and Oking Hospital, Kohima to reach out to the cleft lip and palate patients of Nagaland and give them a new lease of life by rendering absolutely free of cost corrective surgery, free medicine, accommodation and travelling allowance up to a permissible limit. More than 639 cleft patients from Nagaland have availed of free treatment till date under this project and still counting, it said.
As per the release, research reveals that 1 in every 600 to 800 live birth is born either with cleft lip or cleft palate. In India, over 35,000 children are born with cleft lip or cleft palate every year. Considering the population of Nagaland, it is believed that there are more than 2,500 untreated cleft patients in the state, the release stated, adding that these patients are unable to avail of treatment due to financial constraints and unawareness of the treatment facility. Children born with clefts have difficulty while eating, breathing and speaking. Untreated they live a life of isolation and majority of these children never go to school and seldom find jobs, it added.
Cleft lip and cleft palate are openings or splits in the upper lip, the roof of the mouth (palate) and are among the most common birth defects. Cleft Lip should be corrected from the age of 6 months onwards and Cleft Palate from 14 months onwards to achieve the best results.
The organisers appealed all citizens to disseminate information regarding the surgery camp in their respective areas and refer the patients with clefts to Oking Hospital.
The patients should get themselves registered at Oking Hospital & Research Clinic, Kohima one or two days ahead of the camp for necessary examination. For further details, patients can call Oking Hospital, Kohima (0370 2290080, 2290146) or Smile Train Shija Cleft Project, Imphal (9436869799, 9436235270), it informed.
