DAR ES SALAAM: HEALTHCARE providers specialising in cleft patient care are
stepping up awareness campaigns on the importance of teamwork and effective communication in delivering safe and comprehensive care to children with cleft lip and palate.Speaking at the opening of a three-day training organised by Smile Train, an initiative that enhances skills, knowledge and collaboration among cleft care providers, they said cleft care begins shortly after birth by educating mothers on how to feed their babies with cleft lip and palate.
CCBRT Anesthesiologist, Dr Peter Saria said the importance of having an operating room dedicated to pediatric surgical care providing essential, life saving surgical care to children. “Children are often neglected when it comes to accessing quality surgery.
Being able to prioritise paediatric surgical care empowers our teams to support the next generation. The operating rooms breathe fresh air into the hospital’s surgical department and children can recover in a more comforting environment,” said Dr Saria.
He said by training surgical teams as pediatric specialists, will significantly help children get the care they need by building local capacity and will help to create sustainable healthcare services.
Dr Saria said caring for cleft patients entails specialised care in nursing the patient from infancy to adulthood. This includes a child’s feeding, speech therapy, hearing, dental development, facial growth, and psychosocial well-being.
“Smile Train has been doing a lot in not only providing free cleft care to patients in Tanzania but has also been keen on community sensitisation,” he said.
Dr Saria said the awareness of cleft lip and palate in Tanzania is still very low, and a great number of children born with this condition are still seeking help with no idea of where to get it.
He added that myths surrounding cleft impede the family’s decision to seek medical attention. “Some people believe that the reason why they had a child with a cleft is because of something sinful they had done during pregnancy. Others believe that it is caused by the gods, or when the mother goes out in the night while pregnant, and encounters evil spirits. These are all lies and we must begin to educate society better that cleft is a congenital condition whose true cause is yet to be ascertained.”A theater nurse, Ms Belinda Karimi said
Smile Train influences the ‘teach a man to fish’ model of building the capacity of local healthcare professionals. Tanzania babies with clefts are caught in a vicious cycle: their clefts prevent them from nursing, which slows their mothers’ milk production, which makes feeding even harder.
It’s a cycle that often ends in severe malnutrition and even death, those who survive it often grow into childhoods of paralysing sickness, bullying and shame that leave them unable to go to school, find work, or even leave the house.
Smile Train has active programmes in 40 countries across Africa, having created smiles in more than 120,000 patients since 2002. It has partnered with more than 245 hospitals and over 255 surgeons offering free, safe, timely and comprehensive cleft care.
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