Tuesday, February 21, 2006
200 kids with cleft lips undergo free operation
Close to 200 Cebuano children with cleft lips and palates will soon be showing off their smiles.
Operation Smile, in their 9th year of operation, was again at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) to operate on children with cleft lips and palates.
The organization aims to eliminate the cleft problem in the country by 2015.
“Clefting” is a combination of genetic and maternal health problems, said Operation Smile president Edith Villanueva.
She said that it would be important for pregnant women not to be deficient in vitamin B6 and folic acid, especially during the first trimester, to avoid the deformity.
Right now, the foundation is still acting on a backlog of operations. Statistics show there are 4,000 children born with cleft lips or palates every year.
“We want to eradicate the problem in Cebu and the whole Philippines,” said Mariquita Yeung, whose charitable foundation is sponsoring the operation.
“We want to help children smile, a 45-minute operation can bring out the smiles, not only on the cleft victim but to the whole family,” said Jose Querubin, chairman of Operation Smile-Philippines.
This was true with 22-year-old mother, Janice Calibuyan, whose one-year-and-five-month-old daughter had a bilateral cleft lip, until yesterday afternoon.
Teasing
“I’m so happy,” Calibuyan, who traveled all the way from Danao, told Sun.Star Cebu a couple of hours after her daughter Hazel came out of the operation room.
Calibuyan said she was so scared upon sending her daughter to the operating room.
“Kulba kaayo ko pero ako nalang giagwanta para dili mag-agwanta akong anak inig dako niya,” said Calibuyan, who had Janice screened for the operation to save her from being teased.
The same reason prodded Ligaya Aluyan, 32, to have her three-year-old daughter Priscilla undergo the operation.
Aluyan was holding her daughter in her arms while waiting for their turn outside the operating room when Sun.Star Cebu chanced upon them.
“Sungogon man siya sa ubang mga bata og bungi,” Aluyan said of her daughter (She’s being teased by other children). She heard about the project from a midwife in Bantayan Island where they live.
Aluyan also said that because other children tease Priscilla, her husband gets mad and always gets into a fight.
“Akong gipangandoy nga inig human sa operasyon, mausab na ang kinabuhi sa akong anak,” said Aluyan, referring to the taunting that Priscilla had to endure (I hope that the surgery will change her life).
10 days
Operation Smile International, which is on a 10-day medical mission that started last Wednesday, operated on close to 200 children as of yesterday.
Over 36 foreign doctors and non-medical volunteers joined local counterparts for the free reconstructive surgeries both in Cebu and Davao. A regular reconstructive surgery costs P40,000 to P50,000.
The foundation has operated on close to 17,000 Filipinos since its inception in 1982 in Naga City. The project has also benefited more than 2,000 Cebuanos since it started in the province nine years ago.
Operation Smile reported “clefting” as a major health and social problem among low-income groups. Cleft lips and palates are also recorded among the top 12 birth defects in the Philippines. (JGA)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (February 21, 2006 issue)
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