A total of 108 people from the Volta and Oti Regions are benefitting from a week-long free reconstructive surgery at the Ho Teaching Hospital offered by the Graft Foundation, a non-governmental and non-profit organization.

The intervention, dubbed the Volta Hope Project is correcting cleft lips and palate, hypospadias, contractures, syndactyly (fused fingers and toes), keloids, swelling, and tumours for beneficiaries from months-old infants to the aged through surgery.

About 30 medical personnel including plastic surgeons from the Okomfo Anokye and Korle-bu Teaching Hospitals, and the 37 Military Hospital are in charge of the project led by Dr Kwabena Abrokwaa-Yankyera, Founder of the Foundation.

The exercise is being supported by 20 volunteers from the Ho Teaching Hospital.

Dr Abrokwaa-Yankyera, a Consultant Plastic Surgeon and former Head of Plastic Surgery and Burns Unit at the 37 Military Hospital said the Foundation was established in 2009 to offer the much needed reconstructive surgery to the less privileged.

Ms Fati Ahmed, Administrative Secretary for the Foundation told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that some parents went as far as abandoning their children due to the conditions and that the Foundation had rescued hundreds of such situations since it started surgeries in 2013.

She said over 300 patients were screened for this year’s project, and that the 108 shortlisted were pre-conditioned for surgery with cleft patients being placed on feeding regimes.