Since 2014, a total of about 450 poor children with cleft lips and palates from Da Nang and elsewhere in the central region and highlands have enjoyed free surgery at the city’s Maternity and Paediatrics Hospital. 

A young mother happily holding her baby who underwent cleft surrgery

These operations have been jointly performed by groups of surgeons from the Da Nang Maternity and Paediatrics Hospital and the Ho Chi Minh City-based Children's Hospital No 1.

The operations have been funded by Smile Train, the world’s leading children’s charity for providing cleft palate surgery to those in need. 

This US non-governmental organisation have also covered the full cost of medical examinations, surgery, medicines and hospital beds for the child patients.

In recent days leading up to the Tet Festival 2018, the Ophthalmology, Ear, Nose and Throat and Odonto-Maxillo-Facial Department at the Da Nang Maternity and Paediatrics Hospital have been enlivened with laughs and jokes by child patients and their parents. 

These kids have already been undergone free-of-charge life-saving reconstructive cleft surgery.  Thanks to the surgery, these poor children suffering from cleft lips or cleft palates now have happy healthy smiles.

Ms Pham Thi Thu, 22, from Quang Nam Province’s Thang Binh District was paralysed with fear and anxiety as she saw her new-born baby suffering from cleft lip and defects of the eyes.  At that time, Thu and her families felt their world was falling apart! However, Thu did her utmost to help her child in any way she could. 

Fortunately, the Da Nang Maternity and Paediatrics Hospital helped to end Thu’s needless suffering by assisting her disadvantaged daughter to undergo free cleft surgery here. 
The poor woman really poured out emotions and drew upon her faith as the surgery was conducted very successfully.  It was like seeing the light at the end of a long tunnel!

Facing the same unexpected blow as Thu, 27-year-old Pham Thi Truc Lam from Son Tra District could not hide her happiness after her daughter well underwent a free-of-charge, safe, effective and timely surgery.  

Thanks to such a free-of-charge operation, Lam’s kid has been offered a chance to live a normal life that is healthier and more fulfilling.

In early this month, the Head of the Odonto-Maxillo-Facial Department at the Ho Chi Minh City-based Children's Hospital No 1, cum Chairman of the Da Nang Fellow Countrymen’s Association in Ho Chi Minh City, Dr Nguyen Van Dau, enthusiastically appealed for public donations. 

The intention is to provide more free surgery for needy children with cleft lips and palates from Da Nang and elsewhere in the central region and highlands in the coming time.

Dr Dau remarked that children with cleft lips and palates in Da Nang and its neighbouring localities now can access surgery right the Da Nang Maternity and Paediatrics Hospital, instead of only at the large hospitals in Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City as in the past.