Children with deformed lips smile again

By Job Weru

When she got her firstborn, all was well but the coming of the second child heralded tribulations.

Ms Jane Wacera, 28, says her family fortunes changed almost suddenly, culminating in a family breakup due to her son’s cleft lip condition.

But when she was booked for a free surgery on October 8, Wacera hoped for family reunion.

She breaks into tears as she narrates her experience to The Standard on Saturday.

Her son Peter Gathogo was born in February with a defect on his palate, which disappointed her husband, hence the separation. They had been married for four years.

She says when her husband visited her in hospital, after the boy’s birth, she could tell the disappointment in his face on seeing the newborn.

He, however, facilitated their discharge from hospital.

The situation degenerated into domestic feuds.

"But within a month, my husband started complaining over the son’s condition," she said.

And as she prepared to attend the free surgery camp to repair the defect, at Nyeri Provincial Hospital, Wacera could not help but look back at how the deformity made her son look like an outcast, she said.

When we visited Wacera at her hospital bed in Ward 14, she was all-smiles.

"It has been a traumatising period for me. I am glad God brought these doctors my way," she said, a broad grin lighting up her face.

Scores of desperate parents brought their children at the medical camp organised by Operation Smile, an international charity organisation dedicated to conducting plastic surgery on babies born with cleft lip and palate.

More than 200 people with various defects turned up for screening.

The event saw more than 100 local and international experts in various medical fields volunteer for the services.

An official, Zipporah Ngumi, said the defects attract stigma, as people born with disabilities are often treated as social outcasts.

"That is why you rarely see such children in public. Their parents, guardians or relatives hide them," said Prof Ngumi.

She says apart from stigma, children are unable to breastfeed and this affects their health and physical development. They often contract infections and some may be unable to speak because of the malformed lips and upper roof of the mouth.

The organisation’s Nyeri site chairman, Godfrey Kiruhi, said the treatment will help the children lead a normal life.

Normally, children with cleft lip, palate and other facial deformities are ostracised.

High surgery costs

Although the condition occurs in several families, it is most visible among the poor. This is because they barely afford surgery costs, which go as high as Sh60,000. Others, out of ignorance, are unaware that plastic surgery repairs the defects.

Causes of the defects are not well known but studies have shown taking folic acid in the early stages of pregnancy can reduce the risk. Folic acid is found in vegetables.

The rate of defects also vary in geographical areas across the globe. They also run in family lineage.

At the Nyeri hospital, we meet Mr Lerumbe Mungas, 43, who came from Arusha, Tanzania, in search of a smile for his daughter Nawasa Lerumbe.

Nawasa, 14, is a Standard Six pupil at Olarashi Primary School and suffers from cleft palate. Her father said she leads a solitary life in school because other pupils avoid her.

He adds: "In the community, she is treated as an outcast. Her only friends are relatives and a few neighbours."

Nawasa says she had never contemplated having her condition repaired until some foreigners, who visited their school to donate some facilities, saw her. They approached her head teacher and told him they would sponsor her surgery.

Lerumbe said the donors from Conservation Foundation Trust paid their tickets to Kenya.

The mission’s anesthesiology team leader Hezra Opere says some of the children would be put under observation to correct other related problems.

Speech therapy will be recommended for those unable to speak, he says.