Overseas Plastic Surgery Appeal

Last updated

Overseas Plastic Surgery Appeal
Founded1998
Type Non-governmental organization
Focus Plastic Surgery
Location
Area served
Pakistan
Key people
Nick Hart, founder
"Overseas Plastic Surgery Appeal, registered charity no. 1116561". Charity Commission for England and Wales.

The Overseas Plastic Surgery Appeal (Abbreviated to OPSA) is a registered charity in the UK, that exists to provide free facial surgery for poor children and young adults in Pakistan. The OPSA team operate on facial abnormalities including cleft lip and palate.

Contents

Foundation

OPSA was founded in 1998 by Nick Hart who, after travelling to Pakistan with a surgical team to carry out facial operations on young children, returned to Hull in Northern England to set up OPSA.

Starting out in a small local hospital in Gujrat, a purpose built hospital, called The Cleft Hospital, was soon built to meet the growing demand. OPSA have worked out of The Cleft Hospital ever since. [1]

Activities

The OPSA team travel from the UK, Ireland and Turkey twice a year to operate and teach at The Cleft hospital in Gujrat. The yearly trips to Pakistan were increased to twice annually in 2008.

Working with medical teams in Gujrat, including Dr Ijaz Bashir, OPSA teach and train local doctors to carry out some of the work year round. [2] Patients travel from all over Pakistan in the hope of receiving advice and treatment from the specialist UK surgical team. [3]

Facts and figures

Cleft palate occurs in around 1 to 2 of every 1000 births around the world. [4] In Pakistan, up to 10,000 babies are born each year with cleft conditions, with the majority not being able to afford to pay for operations. [5]

As of the end of 2017, the OPSA team have operated on more than 3000 patients. Approximately 100 to 150 patients receive surgery at each OPSA camp, which last for 7 days. [6]

Medical team

Nick Hart is a British doctor and plastic surgeon and the founder of OPSA. Hart was the dedicated cleft lip and palate surgeon for the Hull & East Yorkshire region until 2000, when the service was moved to Leeds. Hart led all of the surgical teams to Pakistan for OPSA, but in 2015 retired from surgery, staying on as the charity's chairman. [7]

Penelope McManus is consultant oncoplastic breast surgeon based at the East Riding Hospital in East Yorkshire. [8] McManus joined OPSA surgical team in 2013 to aid with the diagnosis and care of breast cancer patients. Pakistan has a high rate of breast cancer and few specialist services to care for patients. Bashir installed a mammography machine at The Cleft Hospital so that McManus can treat patients as well as train local doctors and nurses. [9]

Annette Middleton is a Yorkshire-based theatre nurse who first travelled to Pakistan with OPSA in 1999. Middleton still annually attends the camps in Gujarat, Pakistan, to aid with teaching and operations. [10]

Chris Hill is a consultant plastic and reconstructive surgeon based in Northern Ireland who has been volunteering for OPSA since early 2015. He is the only cleft lip and palate surgeon in Northern Ireland, and carries out 250 operations a year at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children. [11] Like the rest of the OPSA team, Hill gives up his free time to travel to Pakistan to operate and teach. [12]

Zahid Rafique is a consultant anaesthetist at Hull & East Yorkshire NHS Trusts. Rafique has been travelling to Pakistan with the OPSA team for 12 years and is in charge of procuring all medical supplies and equipment for the camps. [13]

Ambassadors

Ambassadors for the charity include England & Yorkshire cricketer Adil Rashid, BBC journalist Kate Adie CBE, actresses Stephanie Cole and Debra Stephenson. [14] Trustees for the charity include Ariel Bruce.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plastic surgery</span> Medical surgical specialty

Plastic surgery is a surgical specialty involving the restoration, reconstruction, or alteration of the human body. It can be divided into two main categories: reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery. Reconstructive surgery includes craniofacial surgery, hand surgery, microsurgery, and the treatment of burns. While reconstructive surgery aims to reconstruct a part of the body or improve its functioning, cosmetic surgery aims to improve the appearance of it. A comprehensive definition of plastic surgery has never been established, because it has no distinct anatomical object and thus overlaps with practically all other surgical specialties. An essential feature of plastic surgery is that it involves the treatment of conditions that require or may require tissue relocation skills.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cleft lip and cleft palate</span> Birth defect of the palate and upper lip

A cleft lip contains an opening in the upper lip that may extend into the nose. The opening may be on one side, both sides, or in the middle. A cleft palate occurs when the palate contains an opening into the nose. The term orofacial cleft refers to either condition or to both occurring together. These disorders can result in feeding problems, speech problems, hearing problems, and frequent ear infections. Less than half the time the condition is associated with other disorders.

Oral and maxillofacial surgery is a surgical specialty focusing on reconstructive surgery of the face, facial trauma surgery, the oral cavity (mouth), head and neck, and jaws, as well as facial cosmetic surgery/facial plastic surgery including cleft lip and cleft palate surgery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reconstructive surgery</span> Surgery to restore form and function

Reconstructive surgery is surgery performed to restore normal appearance and function to body parts malformed by a disease or medical condition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orthognathic surgery</span> Surgery of the jaw

Orthognathic surgery, also known as corrective jaw surgery or simply jaw surgery, is surgery designed to correct conditions of the jaw and lower face related to structure, growth, airway issues including sleep apnea, TMJ disorders, malocclusion problems primarily arising from skeletal disharmonies, and other orthodontic dental bite problems that cannot be treated easily with braces, as well as the broad range of facial imbalances, disharmonies, asymmetries, and malproportions where correction may be considered to improve facial aesthetics and self-esteem.

Operation Smile is a nonprofit medical service organization founded in 1982 by William P. Magee Jr. and his wife Kathleen (Kathy) S. Magee. It is headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

ReSurge International, formerly known as Interplast, is an international humanitarian organization that provides free reconstructive surgery in developing countries, primarily to children with cleft lip and palate and burn scar contractures.

Vomer flap surgery was used prior to 1975 as a surgical treatment for children with cleft palate. In this procedure, the vomer bone was used to reconstruct the palate and cover the cleft.

Paul Tessier was a French maxillofacial surgeon. He was considered the father of modern craniofacial surgery.

Pediatric plastic surgery is plastic surgery performed on children. Its procedures are predominantly conducted for reconstructive purposes, although some cosmetic procedures are performed on children as well. In children, the line between cosmetic and reconstructive surgery is often blurred, as many congenital deformities impair physical function as well as aesthetics.

Project Harar is a charity registered in the UK and Ethiopia which works in Ethiopia to help children affected by cleft lip and palate facial disfigurements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maxillary hypoplasia</span> Medical condition

Maxillary hypoplasia, or maxillary deficiency, is an underdevelopment of the bones of the upper jaw. It is associated with Crouzon syndrome, Angelman syndrome, as well as Fetal alcohol syndrome. It can also be associated with Cleft lip and cleft palate. Some people could develop it due to poor dental extractions.

Dame Cecily Mary Wise Pickerill was a New Zealand plastic surgeon who specialised in treating infants with cleft palates and other conditions needing plastic surgery. She successfully demonstrated that care of hospitalised infants by their mothers prevented infections.

New York Plastic Surgical Group (NYPS Group) was founded in April 1948 and is the oldest and largest private academic plastic surgery practice in the United States. The group currently has 10+ offices within the New York Metropolitan area, including Garden City, East Hills, Babylon, Huntington, Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Westchester, and Connecticut. The practice operates with over 20 plastic and reconstructive surgeons who were trained at institutions including Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center, Cleveland Clinic and Massachusetts General Hospital. NYPS Group is composed of nine Centers of Excellence: Breast Reconstruction Surgery and Microsurgery; Burns and Complex Wound Management; Cosmetic Surgery of the Face, Breast, and Body; Facial Reanimation Treatment; Hand Surgery and Peripheral Nerve Repair; Non-Invasive Cosmetic Procedures; Pediatric Plastic and Craniofacial Surgery; Post-Weight Loss Cosmetic and Reconstructive Surgery; and Skin Care and Age Management.

Peter James Taub, MD, FACS, FAAP, is an American Professor of Surgery, Pediatrics, Dentistry, Neurosurgery, and Medical Education at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai as well as Attending Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon at the Mount Sinai Medical Center and Elmhurst Hospital Center, all in New York City. He is a diplomate of both the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Plastic Surgery.

The Children's Surgical Centre (CSC) is a non-profit, non-governmental, and non-religious surgical hospital in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and registered as a 501(c)(3) in the United States. Founded in 1998, the centre aims to improve the quality of life for disabled children and adults by providing free rehabilitative surgery.

Mark L. Smith is an American physician and plastic surgeon based in New York City. He is Chief of Plastic Surgery at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Beth Israel Medical Center, Director of Plastic Surgery for Continuum Cancer Centers of New York, Director, The Friedman Center for Lymphedema Research and Treatment, CoDirector of The Lipedema Project, and Professor of Surgery at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. His areas of focus include microsurgical breast reconstruction, head and neck reconstruction, facial paralysis, reconstruction of congenital defects and the surgical treatment of lymphedema and lipedema.

Hermann F. Sailer is a German maxillofacial surgeon. He leads the Klinik Professor Sailer in Zürich and is the founder of the Cleft-Children International Foundation.

Hirji Sorab Adenwalla was an Indian missionary who joined the Jubilee Mission in Kerala, India, as a surgeon. Adenwalla turned what was originally a small dispensary into a 1500-bedded medical college and research institute called the Jubilee Mission Medical College. Adenwalla specialized in cleft lip and cleft palate surgeries, providing treatment at low or no cost to more than 21,000 patients. Adenwalla contributed several new techniques to the cleft lip surgery, such as a method to avoid a vermillion notch, a protocol for cleft lip nose correction in unilateral cleft lips, and a procedure for septal repositioning.

Richard Andrew Lewandowski is an Australian plastic and reconstructive surgeon.

References

  1. ↑ "BMJ Careers - Subspecialty training opportunities in Pakistan for cleft lip and palate surgery". careers.bmj.com.
  2. ↑ "King Edward Medical College Alumni Association UK :: Charity". kemca.org.
  3. ↑ "Some background to the problems facing patients with cleft deformities in Pakistan". Mr M Riaz - Consultant Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeon.
  4. ↑ Watkins, Stephanie E.; Meyer, Robert E.; Strauss, Ronald P.; Aylsworth, Arthur S. (1 April 2014). "Classification, Epidemiology, and Genetics of Orofacial Clefts". Clinics in Plastic Surgery. 41 (2): 149–163. doi:10.1016/j.cps.2013.12.003. PMID   24607185.
  5. ↑ Coggan, Allison (26 March 2017). "Couple travel 6,000 miles to pay medical fees for young baby in Pakistan". walesonline.
  6. ↑ "Bfirst Newsletter" (PDF). Bfirst.
  7. ↑ "Team Bios". Overseas Plastic Surgery Appeal (OPSA).
  8. ↑ "Miss Penelope McManus - Breast Surgeon | Cosmetic & Breast Surgery | Hull, East Yorkshire (Near Scunthorpe & Grimsby) | Spire Hull And East Riding Hospital". www.spirehealthcare.com.
  9. ↑ "Team Bios". Overseas Plastic Surgery Appeal (OPSA).
  10. ↑ Ford, Steve (6 March 2017). "The Yorkshire theatre nurse helping Pakistans children with facial deformities". Nursing Times.
  11. ↑ "Doc's Face Value Just Priceless; Leading Belfast Surgeon Chris Hill Is Changing Children's Lives in Pakistan through His Work with the Charity Overseas Plastic Surgery Appeal; When You're out There, You Are Aware of the Vulnerability of the Country and There Are a Lot of Guns on Show". Sunday Life. Belfast, Northern Ireland. 24 April 2016. Archived from the original on 10 April 2018.
  12. ↑ "Chris Hill Returns From Charity Mission to Pakistan - Chris Hill". Chris Hill. 1 November 2016.
  13. ↑ ":-Pakistan Cleft Lip & Palate-". www.pclapa.com.
  14. ↑ "Our Ambassadors". Overseas Plastic Surgery Appeal (OPSA).
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