Mass education programme organised at Rural Health Centre, Pohir

Ludhiana: A mass education programme was organized at Rural Health Centre , Pohir jointly by Social welfare Organisation , Ahmedgarh and Plastic Surgery Deptt. DMCH , as a part of ongoing Cleft Awareness Week , in which nearly 150 villagers participated . The programme was presided over by Dr Anurag Chaudhary HOD Community Medicine , DMCH. Speaking on the occasion she said that the cleft lip and palate deformity is many a times attributed to the exposure of pregnant women to cosmic rays during eclipse . There is no such scientific evidence and it is a misconception , she added .

A poster making contest was also organized in which 20 instructional posters were made by B Sc / M Sc nursing students. Gurpreet Kaur, M Sc @nd year won the First Prize and Manpreet Kaur , 4th year B Sc student won the second prize for their posters.

Addressing the gathering , Dr Rajinder Mittal , Professor of Plastic surgery told that this deformity is fully curable by surgery which is performed at 3 months and 12 months of age for cleft lip and cleft palate respectively . The scar of surgery is minimal and fades away with child growing older , he added.
Dr Sanjeev Uppal , HOD Plastic Surgery and Lead Surgeon of Smile Train told that these operations are undertaken totally FREE of cost by DMCH and all medicines , food , etc are provided to the patients courtesy Smile Train . A informative pamphlet was released by Mr Ravinder Puri former President MC Ahmedgarh and Mr Tarsem garg Secretary of Social welfare Organisation .

Dr Sunit Hind , President of the Social Welfare organization Ahmedgarh assured that their organization will spread the awareness to atleast 100 villages and will screen the population for any such deformity . He appreciated the efforts of DMC & Hospital and Smile Train in this regard . 10 patients of cleft lip , palate and post cleft deformities were registered for free operations on this occasion .

Others present on the occasion were Dr Sarit Sharma, Dr Vikram , Dr S P Singh , Dr Mahesh Satija and Dr Bhupinder Singla .