A group of private and public doctors on Thursday launched the Cleft Lip and Palate Management Foundation (CL&PMF) in Accra to treat more children and adults with the deformity.

Cleft lip and palate usually occurs during the first three months of pregnancy where separate areas of the face and head of the foetus develop individually and then join together later.

Although the cause of cleft lip and palate is not known studies indicate that it could be caused as a result of excessive alcohol intake, smoking, lack of folic acid, lack of vitamins, steroids and herbal concoctions.

Dr Albert Paintsil, the Director of the Foundation, said since its inception in 2003, the Foundation had repaired 982 cleft palate cases which also provided services on a daily basis.

He said usually when a child was born with cleft lip and palate they were associated to so many infections since the parents refused to take them for immunization.

He said the condition had been observed to sometimes run in families.

Dr Paintsil urged the society not to stigmatise people with cleft lips but encourage them to visit the centre for treatment.

He said because most of their clients were poor and usually unable to pay their bills after surgery, the Foundation in January reached an agreement with Smile Train, an American Charity which is the world’s largest cleft care organisation, to help support such clients.

Under the agreement, Smile Train would reimburse the cost of surgeries up to 400 dollars per surgery and also sponsor other efforts of the Foundation such as equipment, training of new members, and sponsor the participation of members in international medical conferences.

“The desire of the Foundation to ensure entrenchment of cleft care of international standards in Ghana demands that the Foundation recruits a durable support from within the country to form its core funding,” he said.

Dr Paintsil appealed to both corporate bodies and individuals to lend support to their efforts, especially people with relevant skills, to help with their time and funds.

The Cleft Lip and Palate Management Foundation has account with the Universal Merchant Bank Limited with account numbers; 0000/01/001911/38 for dollars and 0000/01/001912/19 for cedis, he said, appealed to corporate bodies and individual to donate through them .

Dr Opoku Ware Ampomah, the Director of the Plastics and Burns Unit in Korle-Bu, said every three minutes in the world a baby with cleft/palate deformity was born and such parents were faced with so much stigma that forced them to move out of their residence.

He, therefore, lauded the project that would help train more surgeons to assist, expressing the hope that such doctors would avail themselves to be deployed to various parts of the nation.

Dr Gilbert Buckle, the Chief Executive Officer of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, congratulated the team for putting a smile on the faces of the patients their families, giving them the hope to live normal lives.

Mrs Nkeiruka Obi, the Director of West and Central Africa, Smile Train, said more than 700 children were born in hospitals in Ghana each year with cleft lip and palate, and were most often either abandoned or killed.

She said the formation of the Foundation indicates great hope for patients in Ghana as it would help treat such patients.