Rotoplast is a Rotary run organization that sends teams around the world to repair cleft lip and cleft palates in children. Roger and Paulette went to New Delhi, India last Thanksgiving 2013. It’s a 15 hour flight to Dubai and after a layover, 4 more hours to India!
Though the Sarvodya Hospital (owned by a Rotarian couple) is sanitary the surrounding area is not, typical of the metropolis. There are shacks on the side of the road with no sanitation causing a stench mixed with the smoke of fires and coal refineries. Driving is treacherous with no traffic lights or lanes. Animals, people and vehicles all compete for the roadway.
This team consisted of 12 medical, 8 non-medical support and 33 boxes of supplies and equipment. The team is not paid for their participation but it still costs $US50,000 per mission to make it happen. Apart from the Schulte’s the range for prior missions experienced was from 2-40 with the average being 15. Team members came from the Bay Area, Southern California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and New Zealand.
The repair procedures are completed over a week with a pre-clinic, the operations (that last about 45 minutes) and the post-check. Ideally surgeries are performed after a child is six months old and before speech patterns are established. 47 children were attended to but 37 were turned away because of breathing difficulties, infection or other complications. In this case, not always so, the host Rotary coordinator was a doctor who assured those turned away would eventually be served.
The main causes of cleft lip and palate are genetic predisposition and nutritional deficits of the mother during pregnancy. It occurs 1:700 cases worldwide. In the U.S. we don’t see it because most babies are treated at 3 months of age. It is the most common birth defect in the U.S. with 6800 children per year affected.
Apart from the physiological challenges of eating and speaking the social challenges are much more significant. Children are outcasts in school and society with poor chances of employability let alone marriage and family. Cleft repairs change lives!
Rotoplast is 20 years old and has conducted 186 missions to 24 countries affecting 16,000 children’s lives. District 5300 will be returning to Retalhuleu, Guatemala February 15, 2015.
For more information: http://www.rotaplast.org/