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Friday, November 07, 2003
A new life to smile about
TWELVE-year old Noemi is not an average pre-adolescent girl. She is small and scrawny and is only in Grade II. Incessant teasing and bullying made her stop schooling intermittently.
She has straight, jet-black hair and pretty facial features. But it is for her severe cleft palate that she is known in her neighborhood and in her school.
Affecting her looks and her speech, the cleft palate has left Noemi alone and lonely, with no self-confidence at all.
Although not a life-threatening condition, cleft palates, harelips and other facial deformities can be as devastating as other diseases.
"A child with a cleft lip is virtually a living dead. He is bullied in school and he would rather stop schooling. He has a slim chance of getting a white-collar job because of speech defect. He is doomed to a life of rejection and uselessness," explains former congresswoman Edith Villanueva, chairwoman of Operation Smile Philippines.
Fortunately for children like Noemi, Operation Smile has taken it upon itself to provide free reconstructive surgery for children with cleft lips and palates, facial tumors, burn scars, and other orthopedic deformities especially in developing countries.
Recently, a team of 17 Operation Smile Philippines (OSP) volunteers, composed of plastic surgeons, anesthesiologists, a pediatrician, nurses, a dentist, and a speech pathologist, conducted a mission at the Ospital ng Muntinlupa upon the sponsorship of the International Exchange Bank (iBank), the Muntinlupa City Government and the Muntinlupa Development Foundation.
The mission was to perform reconstructive surgery on 50 children, including Noemi. The cost of surgery was jointly shouldered by iBank and the Muntinlupa City Government.
iBank president and chief executive officer Ramon Sy has been a long time OSP supporter, having organized it in the Philippines and serving as its chairman for four years.
"Being a part of Operation Smile has always been a source of personal and corporate pride for myself and iBank. Seeing how these children turn around from being loners to happy kids is more than good enough for us,'' beams Sy.
In 1999, iBank rallied its depositors when it undertook its "I Win I Care" promo and awarded P5 million to OSP. So committed is iBank to Operation Smile that it will soon bankroll a Cranio Facial Center from the remaining P4 million "I Win, I Care" donation. This gives the Operation Smile volunteers something to really smile about!
Changing lives
Operation Smile holds headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, USA and operates in 21 countries all over the world.
Interestingly, its beginnings were in the Philippines in 1982 when Dr. William Magee Jr. and his nurse-social worker wife Kathleen came to Naga City for a medical mission and repaired the cleft lips and palates of 60 indigent children.
The couple left with a heavy heart because about 300 more children were waiting for their help. When they went back to the US, the Magees gathered volunteers and solicited donations so that they could continue their unfinished mission.
Operation Smile was thus born and has since operated on some 70,000 children worldwide, about 13,000 of which are in the Philippines.
One in every 500 births in the Philippines results to cleft, a condition which is characterized by either an opening in the lip, the roof of the mouth or the soft tissue in the back of the mouth. A cleft lip may be accompanied by an opening in the bones of the upper jaw and/or the upper gum.
A cleft palate, on the other hand, occurs when the two sides of a palate do not join together, resulting in an opening in the roof of the mouth.
Operation Smile also trains local surgeons in surgical techniques and follow-up care, to provide such care to children whose families have inadequate or no health care coverage.
Save for the equipment and some medical supplies that come from Operation Smile headquarters, OSP has been relying on the generosity of private donors who dip into corporate funds and share them with OSP, and on professionals who waive their fees and spend precious man-hours to go on missions.
Plastic surgeon Dr. Sonny Santos, on the other hand, has been an Operation Smile volunteer since 1994. His unwavering commitment to its cause has taken him from the hinterlands of Aparri to the rebel infested areas of Tawi-Tawi. To date, Dr. Santos has lost count of the surgeries he has done for cleft patients. Easily, they run up to thousands.
"They are so many that sometimes we don't remember them anymore, like once in a videoke bar in Iligan where we had just finished a mission, the singer offered the song to us Operation Smile doctors. We thanked him for the song but to our surprise, he was the one who thanked us. Sabi niya, 'doc, ako po ang dapat magpasalamat. Inoperahan niyo po ako last year at eto na po ako ngayon.' Looking closer, he was right, there was a tiny scar on his lip and he was one of our patients," narrates Dr. Sonny Santos.
Wherever they go, Operation Smile volunteers lug around medicines, medical supplies and equipment such as anesthesia machines, monitors, respirators, even the lights and extension cords and transformers, all endowed by the US headquarters. The volunteers would go wherever they are needed, usually per arrangement of non-government organizations (NGOs).
"There was also this boy whose parents hid him from the rest of the world since childhood out of shame maybe. He would just be in the farm talking to carabaos. Hindi nagsisimba, hindi lumalabas not even during town fiestas. After his operation, his father came to us, crying and thanking us for the transformation of his boy," adds anesthesiologist Dr. Willie Go.
When Dr. Go volunteered, he vowed it would be the first and last since he had to set aside a lot of things for the out-of-town mission. He ate his words because he never left Operation Smile since 1994, even joining its international missions.
"Sometimes we would operate in public school buildings, atop teachers' tables while using our own lights. But all these hardships are nothing when you hear the sacrifices parents had to make for their children. Some would travel 10 kilometers just to get to the mission site. Some would sell their carabaos so they can pay for the fare to get to the site. Kaya ako, I always make it a point to be in the mission. Basta kailangan ako, I am there," says pediatric intensivist Dr. Dan Malate.
These volunteers are witness to the beginning of a physical and emotional healing for the patient and the family.
"The difference in capabilities and self-esteem is incredible," Dr. Santos exclaims.
Such is the change that Noemi's mother is anticipating in her daughter. "Dalawang beses na siyang na schedule dati pero lagi siyang kinakabahan. Pero this time, sabi niya, 'mama, gaganda na ko'. Kaya na daw niya," the mother of seven children happily shares.
(November 7, 2003 issue)
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