Ahmed Alkadhi has been involved with an overseas Cleft Lip & Palate mission (ORH) since 2008.
Cleft lip & Palate is a serious congenital afflictions affecting new born children worldwide, it involvesvarying degrees of anomalies mostly in the form of ‘incomplete union’ of tissues across the lip, floor of nose, gum and Palate (roof of mouth), it affects one in every 1000 -2000 children (approximately).
While our children in New Zealand are fortunate to have access to free medical & surgical Cleft services, other children overseas are not so lucky.
For the last several years, Plastic surgeons from New Zealand have participated in one of these surgical missions; Operation Restore Hope which is a non-governmental non-profit charity mission to the Philippines.
Funding for the ORH has not been as well established as other missions like Interplast, consequently the mission managed to pay travel expenses of only some of the volunteers (mostly the nursing staff) while most surgeons and anaesthetists donate their time, talent & pay their own way.
One of the hospitals in Manila gives up all of its surgical theatres to the cleft team during that period so the mission often manages to operate on approx 50-70 kids of varying ages during the 1-2 week period.
Needless to say, the community over that region is grateful for the free specialist surgical help that their kids receive and they contribute back with whatever they can, providing lunches, invitations to evening get-togethers etc.
In 2010, ORH received the New Zealander of the year/ community of the year award for their work and contribution.
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