'As part of Operation Smile, medical voluteers examined nearly one hundred children and teens at the Instituto de Cirujia, scheduling life-changing surgeries to repair cleft lips and palates.
' - Photo By F. Sanchez
' - Photo By F. Sanchez
According to Dr. Ruben Ayala Torres, Program Director for Operation Smile, Mexico, one out of 750-800 children are born with problems with these types of facial deformities. Even with all the offers of assistance, there are still more than 3,500 cases a year that go untreated.
"You have to start somewhere," Dr. Ayala says. The first year in Guadalajara a team of Mexican surgeons operated on 30 children. Last year that number grew to 100. This year the projection is for an additional 100 children in Guadalajara and 100 more in Puerto Vallarta.
"Children like this are usually hidden," he says. "The moment they know they don't have to be singled out, they know they're not alone."
One-year-old Angel is sitting on his mother's lap as volunteers in bright red shirts try to coax a smile out of him so that they can take a picture that will be taken back to Operation Smile headquarters in Virginia. Once the photos arrive, medical experts will analyze them in order to determine if Angel and the other children will need additional surgeries.
When Angel was born his mother worried that other children would taunt him, and his condition was so serious that she was not able to properly breastfeed him. When Seguro Social told her about Operation Smile, the timing was right and she was able to get Angel into surgery right away.
Montserrat Maciel is one of the volunteers drawing laughter from little Angel. She first started volunteering when a friend invited her on a mission. Coincidentally, her husband had a cleft lip as a child and was operated on 30 years ago.
"I like that you can see results in 40 minutes," says Maciel. "It's not like with cancer where you help and help and sometimes the children never get better."
She says she has indeed seen dramatic results in the six months after the initial surgeries.
"When the children come in they cannot eat well, they are in a lot of pain, they are very shy and their mothers are overly worried about them to a point where it makes them anxious," she says. "Now they are normal children. They can talk better, eat better, and they are not shy."
Dr. Ayala says that volunteers like Maciel are an integral part of the overall mission.
"The volunteers turn this place into a happy place and that enhances our ability to connect with the patients," he explains. "The families see a white coat and they get a little bit scared."
In addition to the challenges of surgery, volunteers site education as their next biggest obstacle. Many families are not aware that the program exists and unfortunately, the children suffer in silence.
"You don't see them in the streets because they're hidden away in shame. It's a tragedy," says Dr. Ayala.
This is especially true in smaller pueblos where, for lack of medical education, many mothers believe their children's deformities are results of punishments for misdeeds.
As part of the recuperation process the patients and their families are also educated about nutrition. Like Angel, many of the patients are undernourished because they aren't able to eat. Mothers are also informed that many of these conditions can be avoided by consuming 400 milligrams of folic acid a day during pregnancy.
Sixteen-year-old Maria Estelle Garcia Gonzalez is attending the clinic for a routine check-up. She underwent her first surgery when she was six months old and has had two additional surgeries, including one on her nose this past January. She says she is happy to see all of the younger children receiving the same care that she once had.
"I think it's good that they bring them here," she says. "I hope I can give them hope."
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