The Country manager for Operation Smile Ghana, a program that aims at performing free surgeries for children suffering from cleft, Elikem Nyavor has disclosed that Operation Smile Ghana has been able to conduct over two thousand (2,000) surgeries on children suffering from cleft.
According to him, the program has been operating in Ghana for the past twelve years. During those years, it has recorded conducting two thousand surgeries on children in Ghana, including the training of 1,500 workers.
He told GhanaWeb that, for now, the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, in the Greater Accra Region is where most of their surgeries are conducted but they are aimed at finding other locations where cleft surgeries would be performed.
He explained: “Over the past twelve years we’ve been able to deliver surgeries to over two thousand patients and trained over 1,500 health workers. But our goal in the long term is to decentralise the cleft care to a number of locations.
“Korle Bu teaching hospital happens to be the hub where we’ve started the health delivery starting from nutrition, those same patients go through surgery, some of them are recommended to speech therapies and some others get to receive dental services.”
Elikem Nyavor also mentioned that Operation Smile targets children across the country and not only children in the Greater Accra Region.
He further explained that there are times when they treat children from the Northern, Upper East, and Upper West Region.
“All of our patients are from all over the country and so it’s not just targeted at children who are Greater Accra Region. Patients from Tamale, Patients from Upper East, Upper West. In fact, in some cases, we’ve had patients from outside from Ghana come through to receive care from us,” the country manager for Operation Smile Ghana said.
He said Operation Smile Ghana has also partnered with Qatar Charity which has started to support them; adding that he believes that, the support they’ll get from Qatar Charity will help them reach their goal, which is to treat more children with cleft in Ghana.
Elikem Nyavor then urged all mothers whose children are suffering from cleft not to abandon their children or hide them from public because patients with cleft can now receive help which comes at no cost.
Watch the video below:
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