Uganda National action for people with disabilities (UNADP) has partnered with the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) and organized a camp where people with cleft lip and or palate received free surgery.

The camp, where 22 were people operated on and treated, took place at Kampala International University (KIU) Hospital in Ishaka,  Bushenyi district. The role of UNAPD was to identify and mobilize patients to come for surgery while AMREF paid for the surgery and supplies. Other organizations involved were

TAICONET and Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB).  Patients came from many districts of Uganda including Hoima, Soroti, Kisoro, Ntungamo, Kabale, Mbarara, Ssembabule, Kalungu, Kalangala, and Bushenyi, among others.

A team of doctors from Kenya led by Dr Nguti from Kenya’s capital city Nairobi joined their counterparts from KIU hospital and one from from Mulago Hospital and performed the surgery.

The patients looked all smiles after successful recovery from the theatre.

“I think now I am no longer disabled. People in my village will be astonished. They may fear me thinking that I am not the one, or I am a ghost,” said a 54-year-old-man from Ssembabule district after recovering from the surgery. He had lived with a cleft lip for all his life.

“My son will now be able to suckle the breasts. He is going to look more beautiful. People are going to stop laughing at me and my son,” said Moureen Nabweteme, a mother of a patient.

Cleft lip is a condition where a child is born with an opening or gap in the upper lip, often connecting to the nostril. For the cleft palate, the child is born with an opening in the roof of the mouth connecting with the canal of the nose. Children with cleft lip can hardly suckle breast milk while children with the palate cannot suckle at all and are just bottle fed. However, with surgery, both of these conditions can be corrected. Researchers attribute the causes of cleft lip/palate to poor nutrition during early pregnancy and wrong use of medicines, pesticides, chemicals (even rat poisons) especially during the first three months of pregnancy. The causes of these conditions can also be genetical (hereditary). For example, a parent with a cleft lip can produce a child or have grandchildren with a similar condition. Cleft lip patients receive free surgery.

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