Operation Smile medical organisation throughout July 16-21 performed surgery on 140 Romanian children with facial malformations at the St. Ioan Hospital in Galati.
Due to the tenth intervention of Operation Smile in Romania, more than half of the 250 kids with facial malformations in the organisation’s records were operated on free of charge. This year’s surgeries performed in shifts of approximately thirty children a day for a week (July 16-21) took place at the St. Ioan Hospital in Galati.
A number of 54 volunteer doctors, specialised in plastic surgery, anaesthesiology, paediatrics, dentistry, speech therapy, benefiting from volunteer assistance, as well, performed surgery on extremely complex cases.
The main conditions operated were the malformation known as harelip and scars caused by burns. The equipment worth some $200,000 was shipped in through the non-governmental organisation’s network and is to be sent to another location in the world after the surgery session’s end.
The international team of doctors, comprised of famous specialists but also of residents planning to specialise, was headed by Professor Fabio Massimo Abenavoli. This was his third visit in Romania. Although an Operation Smile session lasts for a week during which some 100 children are operated on, the number of kids to have undergone surgery in Romania increased by half.
The incidence of such a malformation in Europe is one in one thousand, while in United States of America it reaches one in eight hundred. The causes for such a condition have not been found yet. Mediafax