Global Image Care to operate on cleft lip children for free
Play
Korean-based Global Image Care (GIC) has offered to operate on about 1,000 Burmese children with cleft lips and palates free of charge.
GIC will focus on poor children whose parents can’t afford what is a relatively basic operation. They hope to target 1,000 Myanmar children within a five-year period and are collaborating with the Karen Baptist Convention (KBC) Hospital in Insein township in Yangon.
Dr Saw G Aye Wai, medical superintendent at KBC Hospital, said: “GIC take care of the operation charges while we give accommodation for the patients.
“Some have to come here from places very far away, so they have difficulty in staying as well as buying food. For those kinds of people, we [the hospital] give as much assistance as we can.”
A cleft lip (cheiloschisis) or cleft palate (palatoschisis), which can occur together, are variations of a birth deformity that results in a gap or “cleft” forming on the face – usually the upper lip. It can be fixed early on with standard surgery to avoid complications in later life.
KBC Hospital has done these kinds of operations twice a year since October 2012. Between February and August this year a total of over 100 children got cleft lip operations free of charge. More operations for cleft lip children will be carried out in October. The patients vary from five-month-old babies to adults over 20 years of age, but most have been 5 to 6 years old.
Many cleft lip children wish to avoid schools, fearing that they may be teased. The deformity used to be called ‘hare-lip’ because of how it resembled the animal. Such operations not only physically improve a patient’s facial features, they also help children and adults overcome psychological trauma with this common deformity.
“Previously, a ‘hare-lip’ child came here for operation. The child said he didn’t want to go to school. When asked, he said his lips were not like others and his friends always teased him. After he completed his operation, he gained confidence and with much enthusiasm said he would now go to school,” a hospital official said.
The GIC Group has estimated about US$500,000 will be spent operating on 1,000 cleft lip patients in Myanmar over the next five years. And next month, GIC will also provide free operations for patients who need gall stones removed.
