An incredible team of medical volunteers are getting ready to share their skills in Mbombela to help 30 people with cleft lip and/or cleft palate defects.
Mbombela, South Africa (08 May 2024) — Last year, 27 people on the waiting list at Rob Ferreira Hospital in Mbombela were given life-changing surgeries. Now, once again, another year has arrived, and 30 children and young adults will be taken off the waiting list and given the life-changing opportunity to undergo surgeries for cleft lip and/or cleft palate defects.
This year, Operation Smile South Africa is collaborating with the Mpumalanga Department of Health, MySchool MyVillage MyPlanet, and a dedicated team of medical volunteers from various regions of South Africa. Their mission: to transform the lives of 30 children and young adults born with a cleft defect and strengthen the local health system during a weekend surgical programme hosted at Rob Ferreira Hospital in Mbombela, from 17 to 19 May 2024.
Statistics reveal that globally, a child is born with a cleft lip and/or cleft palate – the world’s fourth-most common birth defect. Without early access to surgery and comprehensive care, children with unrepaired clefts face serious and debilitating long-term health and psychological problems.
Fiola Lujabe, Coordinator of Programme Operations for Operation Smile, underscores the urgency of timely intervention: “The longer a child born with a cleft must await surgery, the more severe their potential health, developmental, and psychological complications become. The encouraging news is that cleft conditions can often be surgically rectified in a remarkably brief 45-minute procedure performed by a proficient medical team.”
Operation Smile South Africa has been a driving force in the delivery of comprehensive cleft care since 2006, working in provinces where early access to cleft care is severely limited for patients relying on the public health system. This year they will perform life-altering surgeries during weekend surgical programmes in Mpumalanga, Gauteng and the Eastern Cape.
Operation Smile volunteer plastic and reconstructive surgeons, anaesthesiologists, paediatricians, nurses, dentists, speech therapists, and psychosocial experts will collaborate with the medical staff at Rob Ferreira Hospital. Each young patient, accompanied by their parent or guardian, will receive the highest standard of compassionate care, free of charge. This comprehensive care package includes transportation, accommodation, nourishment, medical assessments, surgeries, and post-surgical evaluations, including speech and dental assessments.
Simultaneous to the surgical programme, the Rob Ferreira Hospital Oral Health department will provide dental care for any child up to 12 years old requiring treatment, with patients seen on a first-come-first-serve basis between 8 am and 3 pm on Saturday, May 18 and Sunday, May 19. Spearheaded by the hospital’s head of dental, Dr Marius van der Walt, who is also a long-standing volunteer and educator for Operation Smile, the dental programme aims to help children in the Mbombela area access dental treatment during the weekend, to reduce time away from school.
Beyond these essential surgical and dental interventions, Operation Smile prioritises the transfer of knowledge and skills to local health professionals, thus elevating the standard of medical competence in cleft care and surgery within the region.
“At Operation Smile we seek to empower local healthcare providers so that they can in turn care for their communities. We provide training opportunities on each surgical programme and host education workshops to facilitate the transfer of skills and knowledge. We also invest in training Community Healthcare Workers in cleft identification and pathways to care and provide basic life support training and paediatric advanced life support training for hospital staff and volunteers,“ says Sarah Scarth, Executive Director of Operation Smile South Africa.
Operation Smile medical and non-medical volunteers donate their time, skills and expertise to treat patients on our short-term surgical programmes and to serve as educators to support health system strengthening. Operation Smile has a global network of more than 5,000 active volunteers, 126 of whom are from South Africa.
Long-standing Operation Smile volunteers and best friends Galima Mobara and Togieda Toffie have attended multiple surgical programmes, and both also volunteer for Gift of the Givers. Togieda is a theatre nurse at Life Healthcare Vincent Pallotti Hospital in Cape Town and joined Operation Smile in 2008 as an Operating Room Nurse. She has been on more than 25 surgical programs globally.
“It’s that first expression on that patient’s face when they look in the mirror immediately after the operation. That look of total disbelief followed by tears, raising their hands in gratitude, that’s what makes you humble and honoured to have been part of that patient’s journey,” she says.
Galima is a Registered Nurse at a Private Hospital in Cape Town. Since joining Operation Smile as a Pre/Post-Operative Nurse in 2008, she has been in more than 25 global surgical programs.
“It is truly a rewarding experience; in which you can change someone’s life within an hour. After the surgery the kids return to society and integrate into a healthy childhood,” she says. “It’s important for the kids to get back to their normal lives so that they can attend school without being bullied and participate in everyday community and social activities. It ultimately is an emotional, educational, physical and social acceptance.”
“There are few things more life-changing than being able to offer transformational surgery to young people in need,” says Naeema Alexander, from MySchool MyVillage MyPlanet CSI Implementation. “Operation Smile continues to do phenomenal work and we’re excited to be able to partner with them – by virtue of our incredible customers’ support and partners’ selfless donations – to bring safe surgery to these children and their families, as well as bolstering skills across the regions.”
You can support the work being done by Operation Smile by simply nominating them as a beneficiary on your MySchool Card. Sign up for a MySchool MyVillage MyPlanet card online or via the app (Google Play or Apple App Store) to give back – at no charge – with every swipe.
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