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.

Joseph Mwangi, one, with his mother Mary Wanjiru after operation, [Inset]Mwangi before the operation. Photo: Job Weru/Standard

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.