Although a few different NGOs are already helping the cleft team at the Nepal Burns & Cleft Centre in the Kirtipur Hospital, Kathmandu,  we have been able to add value by providing new teaching and learning experiences to the cleft team. Shankar Rai, Consultant Plastic Surgeon and Director of Kirtipur Hospital, explains in the film why this really makes a difference in advancing cleft care in Nepal. 

A team of clinicians (two surgeons, an orthodontist, a speech and language therapist, a clinical nurse specialist, a paediatric anaesthetist and a psychologist) travelled to Kathmandu last October and spent valuable time sharing information on techniques and processes within the treatment pathway for cleft patients. Pictured below, Siobhan McMahon, Speech and Language Therapist, leads a class on speech therapy.

This relationship with the Kirtipur cleft team has developed over the last 2 years, lead by David Sainsbury (CLEFT Trustee and Consultant Plastic Surgeon in Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary) and is an excellent model for our twinning programme that we hope to develop in more countries. David is pictured in the banner image alongside Christine Couhig, Clinical Nurse Specialist.

The clinicians all took holiday from work to be able to give this time so willingly, and we are very grateful to them for this amazing gift. 

To read the full story about their trip, just click here.

If you are inspired by this film and would like to get more involved in the charity, we are always looking for volunteers to help with fundraising (so we can fund more trips like this one!), but we need more people to get involved in all sorts of different ways. Please contact the cleft office: [email protected]. If you would like to donate, you can do so by clicking the button below. 

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