By YANGE IKYAA Smile Train, an international non-governmental organization that supports people challenged by cleft lip and palate, has expressed its willingness to see all patients with the condition in Nigeria get 100% surgical treatment at zero cost.
The NGO is currently driving the implementation of its advocacy plan and has made strategic investments in education and training of journalists to better report and call the attention of the general public and the government at all levels to this health challenge.
Earlier this August, the world’s largest cleft treatment organization commenced the 2022 edition of its annual training of health journalists, which it launched last year.
The media workshops, which are planned for three Nigerian cities, started in Abuja and continued in Enugu but ended in Lagos.
Emily Manjeru, who is Smile Train’s PR and communication manager for Africa, urged the media to “push for creating awareness and publicity of these critical issues because they affect many stakeholders.”
Smile Train dedicates itself to providing funding for quality treatment in an effort to ensure that cleft patients get 100% surgical care and full recovery to live normal lives and also make positive impact on society. The NGO has broken grounds in Ghana for Africa’s first Cleft Leadership Centre to build the capacity among vulnerable groups for resilience and productive survival. It has also consistently promoted the need for more collaboration between medical practitioners, partnering medical institutions and the media.
Chairman, Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Abuja Chapter, Mr. Emmanuel Ogbeche, urged journalists to use their craft to call on the government to upscale budgetary allocations to the health sector, as a healthier nation remains a wealthy and prosperous nation. Ogbeche also tasked them to collaborate with the ministry of health by using their media platforms to help identify areas of surgical needs and possible interventions.
“We are grateful to SmileTrain for the training since it will upscale health reporting in Nigeria, including in the area of enhancing public knowledge of cleft and available treatment opportunities,” the NUJ leader concluded.
At the workshop, participating journalists were retrained by renowned editors and media consultants on different approaches for enhancing their craft and making it more impactful for improved societal health and common good. Among the media consultants was Nkechi Isaac, editor-in-chief of Science Nigeria; and Alex Abutu, communication expert with African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF).
Dr. Amina Abubakar, a consultant surgeon, cleft specialist, and resource person at the media workshop, said the workshops being held by Smile Train across Nigeria would bring to the fore pertinent issues affecting safe, timely and quality surgical care to patients.
The National Surgical Obstetrics Anaesthesia and Nursing Plan (NSOANP) is seen as an opportunity to close the cleft care gap in Nigeria if it is given requisite support.
Smile Train has active cleft care programs in 41 countries across Africa, with more than 245 partners, including Scottish Charity, KidsOR, and the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA). However, Dr. Abubakar, who works at the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, said “there is always the need to continuously sensitize communities that cleft is not a curse. She also said that, “courtesy of Smile Train, underprivileged communities are now receiving the care they deserve.”
Doing so by Smile Train, she said, will always bring them to the attention of policy makers, even as the NGO has created smiles for over 30,000 beneficiaries in Nigeria to date.
Prof. Emmanuel Ameh, CoChair, NSOANP implementation committee and pediatric surgeon at the National Hospital in Abuja, noted that quality healthcare could be promoted by calling government attention to urgent needs, and that the issue is not lack of money but a question of priority and allocation, as demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Smile Train strives to dispel myths and misinformation surrounding cleft, whose cause is yet unknown. The surgical treatment it offers to cleft patients is free across Nigeria through its network of 45 partner hospitals and over 255 partner hospitals across the African continent. In Nigeria, Smile Train programmes started in 2007.
In the words of Manjeru, “this being the second year we are carrying out the media workshops, we recognize the significance of the challenge faced by untreated children, who grow up with cleft and are stigmatized and bullied and unable to thrive.”
In order to tackle this challenge, Prof. Ameh said that the introduction of free emergency surgery into various health insurance policies approved by the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) was necessary in order to help those in need, especially the vulnerable low-income demographic group, and particularly cleft patients in Nigeria.
