Illustrative image (Source: operationsmile.org.vn)Dak Lak (VNA) – Eighty-threechildren with cleft lip and palate in the Tay Nguyen Central Highlands willreceive free health check-ups and surgeries as part of the Operation SmileVietnam programme.
Operations for the children from Dak Lak,Dak Nong, Gia Lai and Lam Dong province will be conducted from August 27 to 31at the Tay Nguyen General Hospital in Dak Lak. Doctors from the Ho Chi MinhMedicine and Pharmacy University Hospital, National Hospital of Odonto –Stomatology, and 108 Military Central Hospital, among other top medicalfacilities, will perform these surgeries.
The programme also subsidizes travel costs ofthe children.
Speaking at a ceremony opening theprogramme in Dak Lak on August 26, Vice Chairman of the provincial People’sCommittee H’Yim Kdoh said the programme had provided such operations for 852children in Dak Lak.
He said it demonstrate communal supporttoward the well-being of disadvantaged children with disabilities.
Rcom H’Mac, a Gia Rai ethnic who travelled 100km from Gia Lai to Dak Lak for her four-year-old son’s operation, talked of theprogramme as a magic, helping her boy be able to speak and grow normally.
Y Liem Knun from Cu Kuin district in DakLak said his granddaughter could not speak normally for 13 years as she wasborn without a uvula, adding that the programme is meaningful to her life andhis family.
Some 2,000 babies are born with cleft lipand cleft palate every year in Vietnam.
Since 1994, the National Fund forVietnamese Children (NFVC) has run Operation Smile to provide cleft lip andcleft palate surgeries for children. To date, nearly 30,000 children havebenefited from the programme.
The NFVC has also mobilised resources toprovide post-surgery assistance for children, thus helping them integrate intothe community.-VNA
VNA
