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