By TCN News,
Aligarh: Children with cleft lips/palate problems will now smile as J N Medical College’s Department of Plastic Surgery at the Aligarh Muslim University is doing free cleft lip/palate surgeries for children, in collaboration with Smile Train of America.
So far, at least 19 Children with cleft lip/palate problem have undergone free surgeries in Aligarh Muslim University’s Medical College and Hospital under this project. The cost of patient’s medical investigations, medicines and surgery is borne by the Smile Train Project.
The Project agreement has been signed between AMU and Smile Train of America under the patronage of AMU Vice Chancellor, Lt General Zameer Uddin Shah (retd).
Professor Arshad Hafeez Khan, Director of Smile Train Project and Chairman, Department of Plastic Surgery, JNMC said that AMU’s Medical College and Hospital has four senior plastic surgeons with hands on experience of 20 to 30 years doing the cleft lip/palate surgeries.
Explaining the difficulties of children suffering with cleft lip/palate, Professor Arshad said that it is not possible for the mothers of children suffering with cleft lip/palate to breast-feed them. He further said that cleft palate problems are congenital and can be found in children by birth.
Professor Arshad said that infants can develop problems of cleft lip/palate while they are in the wombs of mothers, who are on poor nutrition. He added that even though cleft lip/palate can be operated in any age group but it is the best to get the surgery done in infancy.
“There are also cases of by birth cleft lip/palate problems of children born to mothers who suffered adverse affects of drugs usage during pregnancy,” he added.
Professor Arshad also pointed out that every year 37, 500 children are born with cleft lip/palate problems in India. “One child in every 700 newly born children in India is born with cleft lip/palate problems,” he added.
Pointing out that there are about five lakh un-operated cases of cleft lip/palate in India, Professor Arshad stated that due to lack of awareness about 50 percent of these cases remain un-operated every year.
“As these children grow up, their speech becomes defective and they are subjected to taunts, shame and ridicule,” said Prof Arshad. He added that the idea behind these free surgeries carried by JNMC in collaboration with Smile Train of America Project is to make these unfortunate children smile and live life with out the pain they will have to go through with cleft palate problems.
Smile Train is the world’s largest charity organization based in New York City, USA with projects running in more than 85 developing countries in the world. The charity organization sponsors free surgery for cleft/palate children.
Principal and CMS of J N Medical College, Professor Tariq Mansoor while assuring all help for the operations of cleft/palate children said, “for free operation, any child of cleft/palate can be brought to the J N Medical College’s Department of Plastic Surgery on all week days except Sundays for free surgeries.”