The Smile Foundation’s Moira Gerszt confirms that the surgeries kicked off smoothly this morning and will see the young patients’ dreams come true. This week’s surgeries will not only include cleft lip and cleft palate repairs but reconstructive surgery on a two-year-old girls’ hand and a six-year-old boy’s tongue, as well as surgery to the ten-year-old Sasolburg girl, Selloane Modise, replace the skin on her scalp so she could grow hair. Despite her physical deformities, the young Selloane could not have a full head of hair due to severe scarring caused by third-degree burns she sustained to her head, arms and hands in a shack fire when she was just a year old. She has thus far undergone numerous surgeries, which have helped her learn to hold a pen and write after losing her fingers in the blaze. She is amongst the group of young patients whose lives will change for the better this week.

 Gerszt, says this Smile Week marks the 10th year that the foundation has supported the Universitas Academic Hospital.

The foundation supports 12 academic hospitals around the country and supports plastic and reconstructive surgeons in enabling surgeries to take place more often. It also offers counselling to children.

Gerszt urges parents and guardians of children who need surgery to come forward and receive the necessary help. She, however, explains that the foundation does not choose which children will receive surgery and that they are accessed by medical doctors who also offer advice on the selection of children who urgently needs to have surgery.

“We don’t have any choice of the children who undergo surgery. We are more like refereeing a process that enables them to get to the hospital and to be accessed by the doctors, but any parent or anyone who knows a child that they think needs surgery can contact us.”

OFM News