Free operations for Tibetan children with cleft lips
“Many thanks to the medical team from Hunan Province for treating my child, allowing him to eat and drink like a normal child,” said little Pasang's father on October 18th. Pasang is not yet two years old, received free surgery to repair his cleft lip at the People’s Hospital of Tibet Autonomous Region.
This is part of the “Smile Angel in Tibet”, a program to provide free reconstructive surgeries for 100 cases of children with cleft lips and palates. Little Pasang is one of the 17 children undergoing the operation carried out in Lhasa.
On October 21, “Smile Angel in Tibet”, the care program to provide free reconstructive surgeries for 100 children with cleft lips and palates, came to a perfect ending at Tibet Autonomous Region.
In the past four years, Hunan Children’s Hospital has sent an excellent medical team to the snowy plateau, providing 100 free surgeries to impoverished children under 18 having cleft lips and palates.
This event has been jointly carried out by the Health and Family Planning Commissions of Hunan Province and Tibet Autonomous Region. Since 2012, they have arranged 76 children in five batches to receive free cleft lip and palate surgery at Hunan Children’s Hospital.
The program has received great attention of the society, and also created a new model of medical assistance to Tibet in other places instead of in Tibet Autonomous Region.
The smooth implementation of this project got great support from the Smile Train Foundation and the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation.