Sivagami with her husband Muthuraj, both daily wage workers from Virudhachalam, arrived in Puducherry on Monday. Along with them, they brought their two-year-old child, who is suffering from cleft lip, for the re-constructive surgery.
For three months, volunteers from Mission Smile, a non-profit organisation, the Muthoot Pappachan Group and New Medical Centre have travelled across Tamil Nadu and Puducherry identifying children with cleft lip and cleft palate defects and persuading the parents to bring them to Puducherry for free surgeries.
The three-month work culminated at the PMSSS Complex in Puducherry where more than 100 patients arrived on Monday for the screening and re-constructive surgery as part of the “Smile Please Mission”.
To address one of the most common birth defects affecting children in India, New Medical Centre along with Mission Smile and the Muthoot Pappachan Group have begun their second “smile please” on Monday.
“A team of 35 medical and non-medical staff from 13 districts are present here to conduct surgeries on more than 60 patients in the next five days. Many misconceptions and superstitious beliefs surrounding these birth defects have affected children from getting the right treatment. The volunteers have conducted campaigns and rallies across different districts to create awareness and benefits of the surgery,” said Dalip Pande, Director-Partnerships, Mission Smile.
Rashmi Taneja, Chairperson, Mission Smile, said the mission was to provide comprehensive care for the child and family for a productive and fruitful life. “Our aim is to ensure that every patient gets the best medical treatment with international global standard care,” she added. The patients will be screened on February 20 and surgeries will be performed from February 21 to 26.
Thomas Muthoot, Executive Director, Muthoot Fincorp Ltd, said the 1,000th surgery of Mission Smile in partnership Muthoot Pappachan group will be performed at the New Medical Centre in Puducherry. The partnership of Mission Smile and Muthoot Pappachan Foundation has so far accomplished 996 surgeries throughout the country in the last two years and five months and the fourth patient to be operated on Tuesday was going to be the 1,000th one.
Santana.S, Marketing Manager, New Medical Centre, said this year the patients had come from Puducherry, Nagapattinam, Villupuram, Salem, Erode, Ariyalur, Dindukal, Tiruttani, Tirupur, Chennai, and Bhuvanagiri.
“During the first Mission in February 2016, 78 patients were medically screened from which 61 patients underwent surgeries. In the current Mission, more than 100 new patients are identified from Puducherry and Tamil Nadu. Apart from the 17 patients who were not able to undergo surgery because of various medical reasons and the ones who need their second level surgeries to be done will also be attending. Target of this mission is more than 60 surgeries,” added Dr. Prasanthkumar Nellickal Head – Corporate Social Responsibility, Muthoot Pappachan Group.
Four surgeons, four anaesthesiologists, paediatricians, dentists, speech therapist, child life psychologists, expert nurses in post-surgical care are in the team led by Manish Ghosh, Field Medical Director for the Mission and Senior Plastic Surgeon from Kolkata. The surgeries are conducted free of cost. The travel and accommodation expenses of patients and their families are taken care of.
