Shija Cleft Project
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, September 14 2013 :
Altogether 34 children of Nagaland with cleft lips and palates who could not mingle with their peers out of shame because of their deformities are now smiling happily.
Their deformities were successfully corrected at Oking Hospital, Kohima during a three-day 16th mission of the Smile Train Shija Cleft Project .
Shija Hospitals and Resea-rch Institutes' Managing Di- rector Dr Palin himself operated and corrected deformities of the 34 children at Oking Hospital from September 12 to September 14 .
The project was first laun-ched in Manipur before the project's ambit was expanded beyond Manipur.
Similar mis-sions have been performed in Myanmar too.
The project was started in Nagaland since 2011 .
But due to lack of awareness, the number of children with cleft lips or palates who came out to take advantage of the project was very little.
This batch of 34 children is the highest, said Dr Palin.
So far, 190 children of Na-galand have benefited from the project.
Nonetheless, an intensive awareness campaign is being carried out by the Nagaland Government, SSA Nagaland, Oking Hospital and an NGO named Explorer.
It is estimated that there are around 2500 children in Nagaland with cleft lips and/or palates.