Dr Aman along with Ijaz Bashir started treating the patients in Pakistan in 1996.
A United Kingdom-based plastic surgeon Dr Amanullah Raja has treated around 60 children with cleft-lips or -palates in the country.
Parents brought their children from far-flung areas of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab at the medical camp held by the Islamabad Cleft Lip and Palate Association (ICLAPA), said a press release on Monday.
Dr Amanullah Raja said the biggest satisfaction for him and his team was that their treatment had brought smiles back on faces of children.
Dr Aman along with Ijaz Bashir started treating the patients in Pakistan in 1996.
According to ICLAPA focal person Prof Farhat Akhtar Rehman, out of every 530 live births, one Pakistani child is born with a cleft lip or a cleft palate or both.
Cleft lip and palate can lead to further complications if a child is not treated at an early age, usually three to six months for cleft lip and 11 to 12 months for a cleft palate.
The PCLAPA holds free plastic surgery camps twice-a-year and has organised 27 camps and treated more than 2,150 patients so far.
The surgical operations are carried out at Bashir Hospital in Gujrat. The organisation continues registration of patients round-the-year. It also instructs mothers on how to feed newborns with this condition.
“We organize seminars for raising awareness and reducing their depression and isolation,” Prof Farhat said.
Prof Farhat said ICLAPA was a group of volunteers which relied on the support of donors to bring hope in the lives of underprivileged people.
The hospital planned for Islamabad will provide general paediatric and mother-and-child care
facilities. It will also offer physical and speech therapy needed for rehabilitation of patients, according to the press release.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 27th, 2014.
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