Just the other day one of our young tablers was watching the recent Oscar winning documentary SMILE PINKY and viola!!! An idea came up in his mind and he put it forward as a project proposal in one of our meetings to which the floor unanimously agreed and granted a fund. The project was Tr.Devesh Gupta’s idea.
Cleft lip and palate repairs are not included in any social welfare or health projects in any state government or central government schemes as a result of which most of the government hospitals do not do this surgery on a regular basis and the poor are denied of this surgery. Most of the times cleft lip surgeries are conducted as camps by charitable organizations and other NGOs.
So we at Vizag round table 77 decided to take up this project and start off with a humble figure of 15 patients initially.
Most of the beneficiaries of the project were from far flung tribal areas of Orissa and Srikakulam districts that were identified in prior screening camps. Most of these patients live in villages, which do not have access to even a proper road leave alone transportation. And, all of them are below the poverty line in terms of financial aspects.
The total cost of the project was one and a half lakh rupees (1.5 lakh)
@ Ten thousand rupees (Rs 10,000) per patient. The cost included transportation, hospital stay of 5 to 7 days, medicines, food and surgical expenses. A total of 11 unilateral cleft lip repairs, 2 bilateral cleft lip repairs and 2 cleft palate repairs were done.
All the surgeries were done at Metro hospitals, Visakhapatnam by
Dr. Shiva Nagender who is a young, energetic and a well trained Maxillo-facial surgeon.
At the end of the day putting back a smile on 15 young faces gives you immense satisfaction and the drive to do more. Basing on the success of this project we at VRT 77 are striving to take this project to even greater heights in terms of more number of beneficiaries by involving corporate institutions and other individuals who would like to “SPONSOR A SMILE”.
Tr. Dr. Raghu
Project Convenor
Filed under: Projects
hai table 77 .
I have gone through your project on “smile” about the cleft lip operation .It is a fantastic job by you guys.I am totally impressed with the project and i would certainly recommend this project to our circle VLC-52 as it really makes a difference to people like that and is worth every penny. I would like to have more details regarding this project of yours.I would like to congradulate the team of 77 for this fantastic project and may all their families bless you with all their heart and soul.All the best guys.Keep rocking.