Hospital brings back smiles to faces of 41,500 children with cleft lip, palate

LAHORE: The children born with innate defect of cleft lip and palate cannot speak or smile like normal children do, which causes a lot of social problems, including hardships in following their academic pursuits.

“However when they become normal after treatment, the happiness of children and their parents knows no bounds,” said the medical experts and other speakers at a seminar on “Smile and speech is every child’s birth right” organised by Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman Memorial Society (Jang Group of Newspapers) in collaboration with Clap Trust here at a hotel.

President of Pakistan Association of Plastic Surgeons and Al-Mustafa Welfare Society, Punjab, Prof Dr Ghulam Qadir Fayyaz, in his opening remarks, said that the hospital, which had been established in 2008, had so far conducted 41,500 surgeries, which is the highest number of free surgeries conducted by any institution anywhere in the world. The hospital also received an award for the achievement.

He informed that the donors from Lahore and Faisalabad donated Rs6 million, while late philanthropist Abdul Sattar Edhi also contributed Rs5 million to the establishment of the hospital. “The hospital’s staff, comprising of 42 members, hold free medical camp in various cities, at least 10 times a year,” he said, adding that they had conducted medical camps outside Lahore for 185 times so far and for six times in Kabul, Afghanistan. He informed that the doctors from UK, the US and Afghanistan had been imparted training in this hospital. Besides, he said that the hospital conducted training workshops for doctors after every two years, in which the doctors were imparted training through live surgeries. He informed that the hospital management saved 20 percent of the total funding every year which enabled them to purchase land for construction of a 500-bed hospital expected to be started by 2021. He said that the proposed hospital would envisage all health facilities and services under one roof as in any other government general hospital, and appealed for generous donations for this noble cause.

Former federal minister Haji Hanif Tayyab said that the children with birth defects of cleft lip and palate were born in Pakistan, India, China and Indonesia. “The project in Lahore has been undertaken to serve the ailing humanity,” he said, adding that they envisaged establishing another hospital in Karachi in future. The Principal of Services Institute of Medical Sciences/Services Hospital Lahore Prof Dr Mahmood Ayaz said that the children with cleft lip and palate had to bear untold hardships in society, which was a major cause of worry among their parents. He said that speech and smile carries tremendous importance in the world and deprivation of such natural gifts causes great psychological issues among the children born with these defects. “In such depressing situation, a person like Dr Ghulam Qadir has emerged as a Saviour for such unfortunate children,” he added. King Edward Medical University Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Khalid Masood Gondal said that Dr Ghulam Qadir had brought smiles back on the faces of these children, which was a tremendous service to the humanity.