Our clinics are dedicated to a longitudinal team approach. Specialists gather together from both sides of the borders. Community support networks provide mission logistics and clinical care is provided to the child throughout their development.
In less fortunate regions of the world, socio-economic conditions can lead to a delay of these treatments for the child, if corrected at all. This produces children developing with severe deformities more difficult to correct later in life and social out casting of the child.
On the average, children with a cleft deformity require approximately 5-7 staged surgeries to reconstruct both oral-facial form and function.
While surgical mission teams have traditionally provided surgical repair of the lip or palate, many stop at this stage of assistance. Without longitudinal treatment planning and opportunities for staged treatment of the other aspects of their deformity, children could then develop with even more complicated deformities which require more extensive treatments later in life.
Speech deformities, deafness, inability to chew foods are only part of the problems these children face.
