A New Smile

Hi there, I know it has been a long time since I last updated this blog - but I have been waiting for a story about one of our longer term patients. Unfortunately the communications department have not published it yet - so it will have to wait.

In the mean time I thought I would show you a photo of one of our many cleft palate and lip repair patients. In NZ cleft lip and palate repair is provided free of charge to any child born with this condition.

Lip repair is routinely performed at 3 months of age, followed if necessary with palate repair at 9 months of age. The aim is to have repaired any defects before speech starts to develop. Unfortunately in many parts of the world this is not the case, as we have seen here in Ghana.

This is Emmanuel before:

And Emmanuel after his cleft lip repair.

This is Wonder before:

And Wonder after his cleft lip repair and Pharyngoplasty (a type of cleft palate repair)

There are many more kids and adults who we have looked after with similar sorts of conditions - and it is wonderful to see them sitting on their beds after their surgery checking out their new look with the mirrors they get in their admission pack. The biggest problem for most of them is the fact that we ask them not to eat rice for 6 weeks following surgery!!

Mercy Ships is helped by the charity Smile Train - who provide reimbursement to us for every cleft lip and palate repair performed on board. You can check out their website at www.smiletrain.org