Chairman-cum-Managing Director (CMD) of the North East Electric Power Corporation Limited (NEEPCO) P.C. Pankaj on Monday said that the public sector power company would support the “Operation Smile India” to reach out to more cleft patients in the northeast region.
Inaugurating the NEEPCO-Operation Smile India Surgery Week at the Comprehensive Cleft Care Centre at the Mahenda Mohan Choudhury Hospital in Guwahati, Mr. Pankaj said that the NEEPCO would take the initiative for convergence of all Central public sector units for lending support to medical charity run by the Operation Smile India to make the region cleft-free.
Comprehensive Cleft Care Centre Director Mahesh Deori said about 2,000 children are born with cleft in the region every year and that the Operation Smile India has so far performed about 13,000 safe surgeries. The surgeries were done at the centre and through outreach camps, bringing smiles to about 13,000 persons of the region since the organisation started the medical charity in the region in 2009. The surgeries are performed free of cost and the patients and their attendants are also provided financial assistance to come back to the centre or to the outreach camps for follow-up.
Giving a presentation to NEEPCO CMD and his team, Senior Manager - Fund Raising and Partnership Runa Rafique said that of the total 13,000 surgeries, about 12,121 had been performed in Assam, 524 in Meghalaya, 70 in Tripura.
The NEEPCO CMD stressed the need for focusing on other States of the region and assured assistance to help Operation Smile take up awareness programmes in NEEPCO-project areas to reach out to more cleft patients in the region.
In 2014, the NEEPCO joined hands with Meghalaya government and Operation Smile India to support treatment of 120 cleft patients. Ms. Rafique said the northeast region has backlog of about 25,000 cleft patients.
