Cleft Lip Palate requires timely and multidisciplinary treatment and care – Plange-Rhule

Cleft Lip Palate treatment requires a timely and multidisciplinary approach to ensure safe and quality outcomes.
It must include comprehensive support programs, which are essential to improve care and reduce stigma of the condition.

Dr. Gyikua Plange-Rhule, a paediatrician at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) and a member of the Africa Medical Advisory Council, has stated. Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Kumasi, she explained that cleft lip palate was a congenital condition coupled with environmental factors that interfered with the development of the baby’s face in the womb.

The baby struggles with nasal reflux that makes feeding quite tiring and difficult. She said the cleft lip palate also impaired the patents of speech and breathing as well. Dr. Plange-Rhule said that cleft lip palate continued to be a major public health challenge, which affected the quality of life of patients.

Between February 2023 and February 2024,74 new cases of cleft lip palate were recorded in Kumasi.
This figure comprised of 33 males and 41 females, with their ages ranging from one day old to 21-years Research indicates an incidence of 1 in 763 live births, meaning the condition was common in Kumasi.

Cleft lip palate repair at KATH, according to research reports, has positively impacted parents and patients’ satisfaction and psychological wellbeing. This means a hospital-based cleft lip palate centre is possible to deliver safe and timely and multidisciplinary care in low resource settings.

The Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital has, in view of this, established a National Cleft Care Centre, a modern hub for training, treatment and providing treatment for a large number of patients. Dr. Mrs. Plange-Rhule, said there must be more tailored support services that could further optimize the psychological efforts of cleft lip repair in health facilities.

She advised mothers to desist from using tobacco and take prenatal vitamins while pregnant. She said that families who had a history of cleft lip palate must see their health professionals before becoming pregnant.

She solicited for hopeful and sustainable blueprints for global health institutions to address congenital anomalies in similar environments. Miss Ernestina Oboir, a former cleft lip patient, said she was born with the condition and her early life was hopeless but the intervention of some dedicated surgeons at KATH, who had been with her since her first surgery had guided her towards wholeness.

Source: GNA