The National Health Mission (NHM), Haryana, will celebrate cleft lip and palate surgery and awareness week from January 5 to 9 at all the Smile Train Clinics in the State.
A Government spokesman said that this awareness week would be organised with the support of Smile-NGO foundation. During the week, children with cleft lip and palate identified under Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK) programme, Haryana would be mobilised to the different Smile Train partner hospitals across the State for free consultation and corrective surgery as well as the medical treatment of anaemic children to facilitate surgery on time.
NHM, Haryana with the support of Smile Train-International NGO joined hands to achieve a shared vision of cleft free Haryana. Children with cleft lip or palate were being screened under the (RBSK) programme from all over Haryana through mobile health teams and were being referred to smile train affiliated centres for free of cost surgeries. The spokesman said there were eight Centres in Haryana where Cleft Surgeries were offered free of cost. Around 500 children have been identified under RBSK for surgeries, he added. He said that most clefts could be completely corrected with a simple surgical procedure that could take as little as 45 minutes. There were few procedures that could change a child’s life as quickly and as dramatically as cleft surgery done.