Putting a smile on the faces of children with cleft lips

This December, kids born with deformities will celebrate their first Christmas with a new face and, with it, a brand-new confidence.

What happened was that ASK (Alay sa Kinabukasan) founding chairman and Parañaque City Mayor Joey P. Marquez brought in Operation Restore Hope Australia last February to perform free corrective surgery on 47 kids born with cleft lip or cleft palate. The foundation, set up by the mayor and his two siblings, former model-film producer Via Marquez-Hoffman and actor-turned-businessman Damba Marquez, raised the funds; Operation Restore Hope took care of the operation by flying in world-famous cosmetic surgeons, high-tech equipment and medicines.

There was no describing the joy parents experienced as they were handed back their kids from the operating room last February. Not a few of them shed copious tears.

It all started when Hoffman bumped into Operation Restore Hope chairman Dr. Darryl J. Hodgkinson in Australia, where she’s now residing, and learned of his mission, which was involved in humanitarian services in Cebu at the time. In no time at all, she was able to convince Dr. Hodgkinson to add Paranaque City to his Australia-based mission in the Philippines. Early last year, Hoffman and an ORH team led no less by its chairman flew to Manila and held exploratory talks with Mayor Marquez. The team returned to Parañaque City in November 2000 and screened applicants with cleft lips, cleft palates or burnt contractures for free plastic survery at the Parañaque Community Hospital.

The same team flew in again and performed the promised free operations on 47 children last February.

"By giving these poor kids a new functional face or by restoring their burnt skin to as normal as is possible," says Marquez, "we are making a big difference in their lives."

Led by Dr. Hodgkinson, a native of New South Wales, doctors and nurses of this international charity mission volunteer their time and spend their own money to travel to developing nations to treat underprivileged children who have such birth defects.

A normal operation to correct a cleft lip or cleft palate would cost between P20,000 and P30,000, or between P60,000 and P70,000 if more than one surgery are needed. Clearly, a poor kid would remain untreated and permanently disadvantaged without such charity surgical services as those extended by ORH.

Through the effort of Graeme MacKinnon, whose father’s skin cancer was successfully treated by Dr. Hodgkinson in Australia, Operation Restore Hope is now well established in Cebu where it has been providing charity plastic and other surgical services to the less privileged, especially children, at the Lapu-Lapu Hospital. It has also done similar services in India, Nepal, Guatemala and Mexico. Surgeons from the US, Germany and Malaysia are also donating their time and services to the mission.

Because Dr. Hodgkinson and his team have to take every suture, medication, glove and piece of equipment with them when they fly to the Philippines from Australia, fundraising has been an increasingly important part of the mission. "We welcome inquiries and suggestions as well as any donations of supplies, equipment, services or funds," says the good doctor who has been practicing cosmetic and reconstructive surgery since 1970.