GUWAHATI, Jan 19 � To bring smiles on some more faces of patients born with cleft and facial deformities, North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Limited (NEEPCO) has decided to broaden the scope of its support to the Operation Smile India.
The PSU is supporting the treatment of 120 cleft lip patients in 2014-15.
Inaugurating the NEEPCO Operation Smile India Surgery Week in MMCH, Guwahati today, PC Pankaj, Chairman cum Managing Director of NEEPCO, expressed desire to take initiative in bring other PSUs to help and support Operation Smile in clearing the backlog of nearly 30,000 cleft patients in the North East.
Emphasizing taking up this initiative in other North Eastern States, where the medical charity is yet to start operation, he said that cleft care treatment facilities should be started in other States of the region too.
�We are interested in starting similar drives in Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland, where NEEPCO projects are coming up. Moreover, we would approach other PSUs as well to garner support for treating the existing patients of the region,� he said.
The present Comprehensive Cleft Care Centre in Guwahati has the capacity of treating 3,000 patients annually whereas the region has an incidence of one cleft patient in every 700 births.
Operation Smile has performed 13,000 safe surgeries treating patients of the entire region through its Guwahati and outreach centres.
