DOCTOR IMPROVES THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF RURAL PATIENTS THROUGH PLASTIC SURGERY

Smiles of disadvantaged patients in need of plastic and reconstructive surgery in the Eastern Cape are being  restored by the cleft lip and palate programme by a Walter Sisulu University’s Plastic Surgeon, Dr Viwe Nogaga.

When developing facial features in an unborn baby do not fully close, cleft lip and cleft palate occurs.

The social upliftment programme for  patients is also used as a marketing tool to discard the idea that plastic surgery is only a cosmetic procedure.

“Plastic Surgeons are congested in affluent regions such as Durban and Cape Town. Now what we want to achieve with this  programme is to attract specialists to this part of the country to work in small towns such as Mthatha where I’m currently the only plastic surgeon. I need assistance,” said Nogaga.

Nogaga who joined WSU in 2020 said in working alone one would assume that they are doing things right, even if they do not, so peer review is needed to improve in any specialty.

“During the COVID-19 lockdown, most elliptic cases were not done because they were considered as non-emergency cases and we ended up having a back log of these operations that needed to be performed,” said Nogaga.

Nogaga said that the safest time to operate on a child for a cleft lip is after 14 weeks and the palate at nine months when the stigma has not yet stayed with the mother.

“The cleft palate operation is supposed to be done at nine months because the danger of doing it early is that it might hinder proper growth for mouth bones and cause deformity. However, doing it late also has its disadvantages such as a speech defect.”

Nogaga added that he realized that even though COVID-19 can be blamed for the back log of these cases, but lack of resources to perform the surgeries was also to be blamed.

“When I joined the WSU Department of Surgery, I became the only Plastic Surgeon at WSU, at the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital and the former Transkei region as a whole and that alone tells you a lot about the scarcity of the skill in the Eastern Cape,” said Nogaga.

Nogaga said he approached Operation Smile, one of the largest volunteer-based nonprofit organisations with more than 6000 medical volunteers that give back to different communities using their medical expertise.

“We managed to operate 22 patients over two days, that included preparing the patients and operating them. After three months we started doing follow ups with the patients,” added Nogaga.

Nogaga said that the programme has an advantage of skills transfer ranging from the plastic surgeons, anaesthetists and nurses that are involved in the programme that come to the Eastern Cape with equipment to use during the programme that they do not have in the province.

“We do not want to be limited to only patients around Mthatha but we want to be a flagship project. Already we have gathered 30 other patients that we will operate in August with Operation Smile and after that we will do follow ups,” said Nogaga.

Nogaga also said that one of the aims of this project is to embark on research using these very same patients so that they can have a research output out of the programme.

“We already have the education aspect of the project which comes with the transferal of skills, community engagement aspect because the patients are our community members, so only the research component is missing,”

Nogaga concluded that he aims to form collaborations with other institutions in this programme and has already taken an initiative to take a young person from Mqanduli to train as a plastic surgeon in Pretoria so that he can come back and give back in the rural Easter Cape.

     - Anita Roji