Qena’s children with clefting receive free corrective surgery
CAIRO: A smile crosses barriers and cultures. The simple upward curve of the corners of the mouth is a universal expression of pleasure and happiness. For some 3,000 children born with a cleft lip or a cleft palate in Egypt every year, it s impossible.
As part of its world mission, volunteers from the international organization, Operation Smile, performed 110 free corrective surgeries in the Upper Egyptian town of Qena last month to give those suffering from clefting the ability to smile.
“In 45 minutes, for a relatively small amount of money, we can take a child from hopelessness to opportunity, Chris Anderson, Operation Smile’s international development manger for the region, told The Daily Star Egypt.
A cleft is a separation in a body s natural structure, which is most commonly formed before birth. A cleft lip or palate can be treated with surgery shortly after birth with highly successful results. The corrective surgical procedure itself is not problematic in terms of safety, but it does require a skillful surgeon. That isn’t to say that there aren’t risks. “Most of our cases are done under general anesthesia, whenever you do that you’re taking a risk, noted Anderson.
“But Operation Smile has had an incredible track record over the years in terms of safety, he’s quick to add. Roughly one in 15,000 surgeries ended in fatality, far lower that the standard in any of the countries they have sent missions to.
Smile prides itself in adhering to the highest protocols and standards to safeguard their track record. “One way we do it, is to almost overdo it, explained Anderson. The organization brings in their own equipment and supplies, for Qena’s mission this was packed into about 100 boxes.
Anderson started volunteering with Smile at the age of 13 through a school program. Years later, now working full-time with the organization, his conviction hasn’t lessened. “We can give a child a new face to bring to the world, and a sense of confidence and hope for the future that is tremendous, immediate, and ever lasting.
Though the condition is not directly life threatening, children with a cleft lip or palate have difficulty nursing, consequently they are underweight and poorly nourished. They are more prone to sinus and ear infections that other children. Their speech is often severely impaired.
Their emotional suffering only compounds the physical distress the children endure. “Many of these people [children who suffer from clefting] don’t go to school, because they get teased and called names . they’re hidden away, explained Anderson. “Most of the kids hide their faces, their smiles. What should symbolize youth and hope, symbolizes embarrassment.
Anderson pointed to the social stigma that clefting carries. If a person is born with a cleft, the chances of that person having a child with a cleft and having no other obvious factors, rises to 1 in 14 (instead of 1 in 700). The fact that the common causes for clefting are hereditary means that having a member of the family who suffers from the condition can actually impact on other family members’ ability to marry, “because people are afraid it’s in the genes, explained Anderson.
Smile is fairly new to Egypt. In November 2005, Smile hosted its inaugural educational mission at the Assiut University Hospital. The focus was education and training. With a small team of seven doctors, nurses and dentists, they performed nice surgeries over three days. The operations were transmitted to an auditorium where over 100 participants from the fields of plastic surgery, anesthesia, dentistry, orthodontia and nursing were able to watch and ask questions.
Dr Mohamed El-Shazly, a plastic surgeon and Chairman of Operation Smile Egypt, was credentialed by the organization in 2003 and accompanied the medical mission to Kenya. Last month’s mission was his fifth with Smile, but the first in Egypt.
“One of my dreams was to have an international mission in Egypt, El-Shazly told The Daily Star Egypt.
His contribution has been greater than his participation in the missions. He founded EgyPlast – the Egyptian Society for the Management of Congenital Deformities – in April 0f 2004. He modeled his organization on his experiences with Smile, so when they approached him to combine the two organizations under one name he did so willingly.
“Some asked my why I’m sacrificing EgyPlast to Operation Smile, El-Shazly recalled. “I said that the important thing is that we assist these children with congenital deformities. This is about how to serve our community. The name is not important. He explained that Qena was chosen for the first mission because of the lack of access to medical care and the prevalent poverty, “All Qena has access to one plastic surgeon to treat hundreds of patients. There was also the added advantage of being accessible to those in Aswan, Luxor, Sohag and the Red Sea areas.
Last month’s medical mission was testament to the local need. Over 1,200 people showed up for the screening exams. Out of those 350 or so were potential candidates, all of which received complete medical exams. Out of those, 110 were operated on successfully. The operations were completely free, funded mostly by local corporations and private donors who pooled together about $40,000 (almost LE 230,000) in kind.
The results are astonishing, even a couple of days after the surgery. “You’ll hand their child back [to their mothers] and they’ll say, ‘That’s not mine that is not my child.’ It’s wonderful, but you can also see that it’s difficult because it’s not the face [they’ve] loved for all those years, related Anderson.
“I feel that it’s a first step to announcing activities in Egypt, said El-Shazly.
Anderson hopes that Smile will be able to dispatch another mission in 6 months, supported by international volunteers, but mostly staffed by Egyptians. To commemorate 25 years of creating new smiles, in November 2007, around the world, on the same day, at the same local time, Smile will conduct more than 40 missions in 25 countries, with the hope of treating an estimated 5,000 children with facial deformities.
“It’s those things that are cross-cultural, purely human: a smile, a hope and a belief that our children deserve a better life than we have. It’s those things, Anderson said, “that create, instantaneously, this trust that allows a mother to hand her child to someone she’s never met, [who] she can’t communicate with, just in the hope and the trust that the child will come back with a better opportunity.
