MANILA Mayor Joseph E. Estrada is looking to establish what would be the first medical center in the Philippines that specializes on the treatment and care of patients with cleft lips, palates and other facial-disfigurement conditions.
Following recent talks with Operation Smile’s cofounder and CEO, Dr. William Magee Jr., Estrada confirmed in a statement that they are already in the final stages of planning the construction and operation of the educational, research and treatment facility in the city of Manila.
“This is a big endeavor we are embarking on to help people born with cleft lips and cleft palate, especially here in Manila. We will help these ostracized people get back and become productive members of society,” the mayor said.
Magee expressed his gratitude to Estrada, saying the mayor was “very receptive” on the plan to build the facility and has been very supportive of Operation Smile from the time of his presidency.
“We hope to establish a center here in Manila that will really become a world-class educational center where people from all over the world will be coming to be educated and trained in taking care of children with cleft,” Magee said.
With such a facility, he said, medical professionals, such as surgeons, speech therapists, psychologists, dentists and orthodontics, from all over the world will come to Manila to hone their skills and offer their services to local people with cleft lips and palates.
At present there are only centers and departments in local hospitals that offer surgeries for patients with cleft palates, such as the Manila Cleft Care Center at the city-run Santa Ana Hospital and in other cosmetic clinics, but they usually offer reconstructive surgeries for a hefty price. The full cost of treatment could reach P100,000 in private hospitals. This could be why 5,000 to 7,000 children with cleft lips and palates have never been treated and remain without access to any form of medical care.
Magee said the primary benefit of establishing the specialty medical center in Manila would be that these thousands of patients with cleft condition will be provided with free and quality surgery and rehabilitation yearly.
“Without surgery, they’re outcast. They can’t speak intelligibly, they’re shunned and so they can never become productive citizens of the country,” Magee added.
Cleft incidence among newborns in the Philippines is estimated by Operation Smile at one in every 500. This means around 4,004 Filipinos out of 2,064 million born every year have these defects.
The Department of Health (DOH) said the number of new cases reaches up to 5,000 every year. A report from the Philippine Birth Defect Registry—a partnership of the DOH and the United States National Institute of Human Genetics—said cleft lip and palates are among the top 12 birth defects in the country.