Upcountry folks can now afford Interplast surgery
Apr 06, 2003
JOHN Peter Olipan, 13, with a stony face frowns at anyone who tries to gaze at his disabled right arm. It has a frightening appearance with skin in the elbow curve preventing it from stretching out.
By Richard Otim
JOHN Peter Olipan, 13, with a stony face frowns at anyone who tries to gaze at his disabled right arm. It has a frightening appearance with skin in the elbow curve preventing it from stretching out.
Going through the stigma that goes with disability, this has been the state of Olipan’s life since birth.
He is one of those with deformities who have just benefited from re-constructive plastic surgery that has been performed by a group of plastic surgeons from Holland at Kumi hospital.
The operation carried out by Interplast surgeons is meant to improve on the form and function of those suffering from deformities.
Olipan however is not willing to talk to anybody but his mother, Christine Atano, who coerces him to talk to the surgeons.
“People make fun of my arm. That is why I don't like people who concentrate on looking at my arm,†Olipan told The New Vision.
His mother says that in 1987, a group of rebels of the then Teso insurgency attempted to rape her as she was cooking with baby Olipan on her back. and as she struggled with them, the child fell in fire.
Another patient in the queue for plastic surgery is a one-year-old Grace Kalekwa who yells at the sight of the camera.
She has a cut on the upper lip, a condition that does not allow a child to breastfeed. It is medically known as cleft lip.
Dr John Opolot, Kumi hospital medical superintendent, says cleft lip deprives the victims of self-esteem and for the school children, it is a nightmare.
He says many of these problems are genetic while others come as a result of polio or burns.
Thanks to new discoveries in plastic surgery, this agony shall be no more.
According to Dr Adrian de Blecourt, however, the team leader of the Dutch plastic surgeons who visited Kumi hospital recently, such cases can never develop into disability.
He says that for cases of cleft lip, the problem can successfully be rectified in one year's time.
He hastens to add that poverty coupled with an inadequate number of plastic surgeons in the country had partly contributed to disabilities related to such cases.
"We do understand the situation in Africa. These operations are damn expensive. That is why many develop into disabilities," Dr Blecourt said. He added that for this particular visit to the country it had cost those supporting the programme nearly euros 15,000 (sh32, 000,000).
One parent of the operated children, Moses Kaziba, who travelled from Bugiri, complained about the cost of such operations saying that he had given up treating of his one-year child suffering from a cleft lip.
"I went to Nsambya but was discouraged when I learnt that it was too costly for a poor parent to carry out such an operation," Kaziba said.
The team of three surgeons including three anaesthetists who have been in the country for nearly a month, have operated 55 cases of cleft lip at Mulago and Mengo hospitals and 40 in Kumi.
Such exercises have been going on in the country since 1989.
"With the support of our private sponsors, we have been visiting Uganda once a yea,r but for the last few years, we have been visiting the country twice a year," Dr. Blecourt said.
Regina Mainetti, the physiotherapist in charge of the Kumi hospital physiotherapy ward, says the response that the surgery team got was overwhelming.
JOHN Peter Olipan, 13, with a stony face frowns at anyone who tries to gaze at his disabled right arm. It has a frightening appearance with skin in the elbow curve preventing it from stretching out.
Going through the stigma that goes with disability, this has been the state of Olipan’s life since birth.
He is one of those with deformities who have just benefited from re-constructive plastic surgery that has been performed by a group of plastic surgeons from Holland at Kumi hospital.
The operation carried out by Interplast surgeons is meant to improve on the form and function of those suffering from deformities.
Olipan however is not willing to talk to anybody but his mother, Christine Atano, who coerces him to talk to the surgeons.
“People make fun of my arm. That is why I don't like people who concentrate on looking at my arm,†Olipan told The New Vision.
His mother says that in 1987, a group of rebels of the then Teso insurgency attempted to rape her as she was cooking with baby Olipan on her back. and as she struggled with them, the child fell in fire.
Another patient in the queue for plastic surgery is a one-year-old Grace Kalekwa who yells at the sight of the camera.
She has a cut on the upper lip, a condition that does not allow a child to breastfeed. It is medically known as cleft lip.
Dr John Opolot, Kumi hospital medical superintendent, says cleft lip deprives the victims of self-esteem and for the school children, it is a nightmare.
He says many of these problems are genetic while others come as a result of polio or burns.
Thanks to new discoveries in plastic surgery, this agony shall be no more.
According to Dr Adrian de Blecourt, however, the team leader of the Dutch plastic surgeons who visited Kumi hospital recently, such cases can never develop into disability.
He says that for cases of cleft lip, the problem can successfully be rectified in one year's time.
He hastens to add that poverty coupled with an inadequate number of plastic surgeons in the country had partly contributed to disabilities related to such cases.
"We do understand the situation in Africa. These operations are damn expensive. That is why many develop into disabilities," Dr Blecourt said. He added that for this particular visit to the country it had cost those supporting the programme nearly euros 15,000 (sh32, 000,000).
One parent of the operated children, Moses Kaziba, who travelled from Bugiri, complained about the cost of such operations saying that he had given up treating of his one-year child suffering from a cleft lip.
"I went to Nsambya but was discouraged when I learnt that it was too costly for a poor parent to carry out such an operation," Kaziba said.
The team of three surgeons including three anaesthetists who have been in the country for nearly a month, have operated 55 cases of cleft lip at Mulago and Mengo hospitals and 40 in Kumi.
Such exercises have been going on in the country since 1989.
"With the support of our private sponsors, we have been visiting Uganda once a yea,r but for the last few years, we have been visiting the country twice a year," Dr. Blecourt said.
Regina Mainetti, the physiotherapist in charge of the Kumi hospital physiotherapy ward, says the response that the surgery team got was overwhelming.