Operation Smile eyes 200 recipients next year

CEBU – With more than 3,000 beneficiaries here in Cebu since 1998, about 200 children with cleft lip and cleft palate deformities are the target of Operation Smile International’s medical mission in Cebu early next year.

The 2008 mission, supported by the Mariquita Salimbangon Yeung Charitable Foundation Inc., will run from February 22 to March 2, 2008 at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center.

“In 45 minutes, you can make a child smile. In 45 minutes, you can change a life. In 45 minutes, you can make a difference,” said Mariquita Salimbangon- Yeung in a speech read for her by daughter Carla last Thursday.

That day, the foundation initiated a Christmas party to would be patients and recipients of the mission at the Cebu City Marriott Hotel. 

Ramona Aliño, executive director of MSY Charitable Foundation Inc. and site coordinator for Operation Smile Cebu, said that aside from local doctors from Cebu and other parts of the country, several foreign surgeons and nurses will also participate in next year’s mission.

Normally, a surgical procedure to correct a cleft lip or cleft palate deformities would cost up to P60,000.

Operation Smile Philippines was started 25 years ago in Naga City by American doctor William Magee and his wife Kathy, a nurse. It was only 1998 when Dr. James Joaquino of Operation Smile Philippines and Dr. Han Kai of Operation Smile China asked MSY Charitable Foundation Inc. to host the mission and the foundation has hosted the subsequent missions here since then.

“But the good thing is we had never really been short of helping hands. We noticed that the bigger the projects the more people, with generous impulses like you came to give their support. And amazingly, we had never heard of anybody complain of having become poorer for having given away a part of their earnings, of having lost some opportunities. Truly, God is a tremendous supplier,” Yeung’s speech further reads.

Since 1982, Operation Smile International has treated more than 100,000 children in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Thousands of globally trained healthcare professionals have also volunteered for the missions.

The MSY Charitable Foundation Inc. itself shells out up to P2M annually to cover the transport and accommodation of medical volunteers. — Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon/JMO (THE FREEMAN)