San Francisco based non-profit Alliance for Smiles sends medical team to the People's Hospital No. 1 in Baiyin, Gansu Province, PeoplesRepublic of China to provide free cleft lip and cleft palate surgery for poor children.
Baiyin
, Gansu -- From February 22 to March 8, 2008, San Francisco based non-profit Alliance for Smiles (AfS) is providing free cleft lip and palate surgery at the People's Hospital No. 1. The team is partnering with the hospital, LanzhouUniversity, The China Population Welfare Foundation and the State Family Planning Commission of Gansu Province.
The Alliance for Smiles team is composed of a total of 35 volunteer doctors, nurses, dentists, and translators, photographers and other non-medical personnel. On Monday February 25, they will screen over 150 potential patients who have been contacted by the State Family Planning Commission and will schedule 120 children for surgery and dental treatment.
The Alliance for Smiles Medical Team will be headed by Dr. Joseph Zbylski, a reconstructive plastic surgeon from Colorado. The Mission Director is Barbara Fisher, former Vice President of Boulder Community Hospital in Colorado. Dr. Colin Wong of Tiburon, California, Vice President of Alliance for Smiles China Relations is also accompanying the team as is President and CEO Anita Stangl. All of the team members donate their time and receive no payment for services rendered.
This trip is the 11th mission for Alliance for Smiles and is supported by funding from individuals interested in helping these children as well as a generous grant from The Smile Train, and contributions from many Rotary Clubs and Districts including the Rotary Club of San Francisco, The Rotary Club of Mill Valley and many individual Rotarians and Rotary Clubs of Taipei, Taiwan.
The goal of the Alliance for Smiles team is to facilitate active interchange of ideas and practices through one-on-one mentoring and medical lectures with the volunteer doctors as they provide advanced training in reconstructive surgery techniques. Alliance for Smiles emphasizes not only surgical intervention but also development of permanent centers that provide ongoing multi-disciplinary comprehensive treatment of the cleft anomaly.
Alliance
for Smiles has chosen China as the country to concentrate its current efforts because in many remote areas there are simply too many children born with the cleft anomaly and too few financial resources for treatment. In China, one in 350 children is born with a cleft lip or palate. Alliance for Smiles' holistic treatment approach involves surgery along with dental treatment and speech therapy.
Alliance
for Smiles partners with the Craniofacial Department of the University of California Medical/Dental School in San Francisco. Through its relationship with UCSF, Alliance for Smiles is committed to setting up long term treatment programs for cleft children in China. In April 2007, Alliance for Smiles dedicated its first cleft lip and palate treatment center in Jiujiang.
All surgeries will be provided free of charge.
