Mission 2011 Kalibo: Mending Faces, changing lives

BY BOY RYAN B. ZABAL

Mending Faces conducts yearly campaigns "to give life-changing gift to children with facial deformities." In Aklan, more than 30 foreign volunteers treated 37 patients at Dr. Rafael S. Tumbokon Memorial Hospital from February 13 to 18 / PHOTOS BY MENDING FACES

KALIBO, Aklan – Mending Faces’ team of doctors, most of them from Colorado, Hongkong and United Kingdom, and the provincial government of Aklan, teamed up in Mission 2011 Kalibo at Dr. Rafael S. Tumbokon Memorial Hospital (DRSTMH) here.

Dr. Rogelio Rivera, Management Consultant of Economic Enterprise Development Department-DRSTMH, said the doctors performed cleft lip and cleft palate surgeries during their stay in Aklan from February 13 to 18.

"There were 37 patients with facial deformities who availed free surgery and medical services from Mending Faces. The core volunteers performed 53 surgeries, which cost roughly $750,000 if they performed the procedures in the United States," he stressed.

Rivera said more than thirty medical and paramedical volunteers - plastic surgeons, anesthesiologists, pediatricians, surgery techs, dentists, nurses and allied health services – also enlisted the help of local surgeon Dr. Oscar Hilario, president of Aklan Medical Society, and nurses of DRSTMH during the three full days of surgery.

The patients were young and they ranged in age from 7 months to 10 years old. The majority of the patients were boys. Two adults from Tangalan, Aklan and Estancia, Kalibo, Aklan were also by treated by volunteer doctors.

The mission was able to serve patients from the neighboring barangays of Kalibo, Banga, Batan, Numancia, Makato, Malinao and Tangalan.
Mending Faces targets to operate more than 60 patients, but, in Aklan, only 37 patients were treated.

The mission started in 1998 and every two years, the doctors travelled to Aklan to perform cleft palate and cleft lip surgeries.

Rivera said the next mission trip of Mending Faces is scheduled in 2012 in the province of Antique.

The provincial government through the leadership of Aklan Governor Carlito Marquez and the Rotary Club of Kalibo, for many years, spearheaded the mission of self-funded volunteer physicians and nurses.

In addition, Rivera also thanked Mending Faces volunteer Donna Bandiola LaVigne, who hails from Boracay Island, Malay, Aklan and now based in Broomfield, Colorado for the outreach medical mission.

Changing lives

Mending Faces, headed by chairman Dr. David Charles, has performed more than 400 operations all over the world, especially in Third world countries.

Cleft palates, a condition resulting when tissue in the lips and mouth fail to meet, leaving gaps.
Such deformities cause speech problems, frequent infections, and inadequate nutrition. And then there is the severe social stigma. Children with cleft lips find themselves unable to attend school because they are the targets for extensive ridicule, the Mending Faces stressed.