Angels come in many shapes and guises. For a twelve-year-old Madagascan girl, the angel in her life appeared in the form of a dentist from the KZN South Coast, Dr Alan Ranjith.
This year, his annual pro bono stint for Operational Smile took him to Madagascar – along with a large team of dedicated medical professionals who regularly donate their services to this admirable organization.
Operation Smile, founded in 1982 by plastic surgeon, Dr William Magee Jr and his wife, Kathleen, a nurse and clinical social worker, was established as a medical mission to provide surgery for children born with cleft lip and palate conditions.
“The project is aesthetic driven,” says Ranjith.
“It makes an immediate difference in the lives of these people. In many countries they become outcasts. Often they can’t go to school or they are beaten up and bullied – especially in African countries where the conditions are often seen to be the result of witchcraft. The bottom line is that we treat patients who would otherwise not be helped. People who are in no position to help themselves due to the infrastructure in their countries, or financial constraints. And the success rate is phenomenal!”
Ranjith explains that cases are prioritised from 1 to 5. Case 1 patients are given priority – these are children under the age of 9 with either uni-or bi-lateral cleft lip defects. They get surgery first. Once that is normalised they are more acceptable in their communities.
The young girl on his most recent trip to Madagascar fell into the Case 5 category – a cleft in the soft palate – which is not considered as high a priority. Her chances of surgery were minimal. But she had travelled for five days to get to the Operation Smile site, and Ranjith was not going to let her go home without treatment and disappointed.
He was the only dentist on the team at the time.
“The dentists remove carious teeth from the surgical site, assist the plastic surgeons and remove teeth that are in a poor position or condition for surgery,” he states. “They also make palatal obturators which cover the cleft in the palate in order to stop food going up this nose, so that the person can eat more comfortably.”
Determined to help give this girl a better quality of life, he set about making an obturator for her – a task that would prove more difficult than he expected.
“At first I failed. But I managed to modify it and get it to retain. Luckily she was as determined as I was. I always say that you’re only as good as your patient allows you to be!”
Ranjith joined Operation Smile in 2009 on the recommendation of a friend. Each year he joins dedicated teams of anaesthesiologists, plastic surgeons, speech therapists, medical records personnel, photo imaging technicians and nurses who travel to various countries around the world giving children back their smiles and a reason to smile.
“The feeling at post op can’t be matched by any drug in the world. It is the best high. Seeing that you’ve made such a huge difference in somebody’s life in an hour and a half of surgery. It is priceless,” he says.
Today, Operation Smile is an international medical charity whose global network of thousands of credentialed medical volunteers from more than 80 countries is dedicated to helping improve the health and lives of children from more than 60 countries. It has provided more than 220,000 free surgical procedures for children and young adults born with cleft lip, cleft palate and other facial deformities.
For more information click here.
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