WATCHING a child with cleft and palate lips playing among his normal colleagues may be traumatic for a parent. The child's facial mutilation naturally erases his sense of humour and pain. He could hardly express himself with the mouth. For some, they feed on liquid if the crevice extends to the nose, exposing the dental cavity.Their parents seldom take them out for social activity except to the hospital. These are some of the challenges a cleft child passes through daily.However, two months ago, some parents traded their shame when they stormed Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, in broad day light to benefit from the free cleft and palate surgery organised by the state government in collaboration with HEWS (Health, Education, Work and Shelter) Foundation.One of the parents, Mrs Munirat Akande, said, 'I know that after today's surgery, my child becomes a new creature. I can always take him out to wherever I go. I used to cry everyday because of my child's condition.'Her child had not been lucky enough to benefit from the past corrective surgery organised by the state government. Over 300 people have so far benefited from the programme since inception in 2004.The highly elated Akande revealed how other parents always separated their children from her child due to his cleft and palate problem. 'The stigmatisation is unbearable and can be so traumatic. I'm not the one who created this boy; I would have corrected the anomaly. I do not have money, I would have done something to beautify my child but I always pray to God to do a miracle in our lives. Here we are today, enjoying free surgery,' she said.Another parent, who simply identified herself as Mrs. Anthony reluctantly, told Features Tribune how her reproach miraculously changed to glory. 'I have resorted to living with my child's cleft condition. We have contacted various hospitals but the cost of surgery was too much for us. Some hospitals have advised us to fly the boy out of the country but we lack money to do so until a friend told me to visit Lagos State Ministry of Health for assistance,' she said.During her visit, Anthony learnt about HEWS Foundation's plan to help some families and consequently turned out to be one of the eight beneficiaries in August.Speaking to Features Tribune, the Programme Manager of HEWS Foundation, Dr. Dotun Abosede, said that the collaboration was borne out of the objective and mission of the organisation to help people live a healthy life, have good access to education, have decent shelter and help them to live out of poverty.According to him, HEWS Foundation is primarily focused on giving free cleft lip and palate surgery to hundreds of thousands of Nigerians who may have to struggle through life without a smile. 'Many of these people are children and many of them might never be able to eat and feed well for the rest of their lives if these defects are not corrected,' he explained.He noted that the surgical intervention to correct these deformities only takes between 45 minutes and one hour to restore smiles back to the faces of these deformed patients, stressing that the overall good to be derived by the deformed patients and their families informed the need for HEWS to step in to alleviate their sufferings.In his comment, the state Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris, said that the number of beneficiaries was quite high compared to what is obtained in some other parts of the world.As he put it, 'The state government has so far corrected 300 cases of different types of mouth congenital deformities especially cleft lip and palate and this is quite a high number when compared with what is obtained in other parts of the world. I think this is one of the reasons organisations like Smile Train and HEWS Foundation decide to support us.'Speaking on the causes of cleft lip and palate, the State Coordinator of the Programme, Dr. Dolapo Fasawe, described the condition as a congenital malformation that results from so many factors, especially in relations to the formation of babies during pregnancy, stressing that it is usually due to problems in genetics when a child is being formed which could be attributed to the use of drugs during pregnancy, especially drugs not prescribed by medical practitioners.She said, 'Most of these patients have been ostracised by family, friends and the society and when we see them, we do a lot of counselling and the ministry goes as far as giving food, milk and nutritional supplements because a lot of them are nutritionally deficient and cannot feed well.'We also hold meetings with their family members and encourage them to send these children to school. We also continue to give free care to these patients even after surgery.These are some of the things we do to incorporate these children back into the society.' Before it came to LASUTH, HEWS Foundation had helped put smiles on the faces of 30 lucky cleft patients and their families. Three editions of the Foundation's Free Cleft Surgery programmes were held in Ondo State with 12 patients who had their cleft lips and palates successful repaired in November 2010 at the State Specialist Hospital, Akure, while the second programme was carried out at the University Teaching Hospital, Ado-Ekiti, in May 2011 on 10 patients. The third in the series which successfully took care of eight cases held at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja Lagos.
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