We return to these areas annually to support pediatric facial plastic surgery care. We primarily perform cleft lip and palate surgeries working with local plastic and oral surgeons. We had halted our trips since the onset of the pandemic. This will be our first return trip since that time. In discussing and planning with our local partners, there is anticipated to be a significant backlog of patients and need. We travel to India with our team and begin at Ujjain and then travel to Indore to provide surgical care.
We primarily serve poor and marginalized population of India. These are patients and families who are unable to access the healthcare system present in India for a variety of reasons (financial, travel, care or providers available, etc) We continue to intend to return to the same locations for continuity; we have seen return patients in follow up on subsequent trips. We work with local providers in attempt to build a more sustained presence of care in the region.
We anticipate a significant need this trip as a result of no humanitarian trips occurring during the pandemic. We typically perform 150-200 surgeries and procedures during the trip at these sites. We are delivering surgical repair with focus on repair of cleft lip and palate in pediatric patients. Additionally, we also address other congenital facial conditions. Facial appearance is an important determinant in social status and function in Indian culture.
Our team traveled to 2 cities in Madhya Pradesh, Ujjain and Indore. We held 2 separate camps providing surgical care to pediatric patients with congenital facial differences. We focused heavily on clefting conditions and also treated some sequela from traumatic injuries or infection. Some of the older patients benefitted from revision surgery.
This is an annual trip that we perform yearly. We return to the same region and work with the same local physicians-surgeons. We do have the opportunity to see some of our patients in follow up. This was our first return trip after the pandemic. We did incorporate some protocol changes to reduce risk of transmission among patients and staff. Our team will continue this trip annually.
