For 91 times, Nurse Lindy of the Helping Children Smile, Inc of Australia carried her young patients out of the recovery room up to the ward, hugging each child close to her chest, a beam of joy brightening up her face. And each and every time, she never failed to touch those blessed enough to witness such a moving sight.

“I told our nurses to follow the Australians’ example and carry a child patient to its bed instead of wheeling him or her on the gurney,” said Dr. Kitty Miranda, head of the Paediatric Department of the Sta. Rosa Community Hospital, City of Sta. Rosa in Laguna.

This was just one of the many lessons that a 15-man medical team from Australia imparted to their colleagues in the span of 10 days when they conducted a surgical mission for cleft lip and cleft palate there. A joint project of the Rotary Club of Santa Rosa Centro and the Santa Rosa Medical Society, in partnership with the Office of the City Mayor Arlene A. Nazareno, the mission was dubbed “Balik-Ngiti.”

It was one year ago when Rotarian Lore Veneracion from District 3780 called me to find a host hospital for the next HCSI surgical mission. The team has just conducted a mission north of Manila and they were looking for another venue. I briefly talked on the phone with Rotarian Bernice McLennan of the Rotary Club of Maleny who was also the secretary of HCSI. Another member of the team, Nurse Mayer, a Filipina originally from Cavite, visited Santa Rosa to do an ocular of the community hospital and the town.

The next months saw an exchange of e-mails as the project slowly gelled. RC Santa Rosa Centro, as the primary contact, invited the Santa Rosa Medical Society to be a project partner and take care of the medical support to HCSI. Besides, the director of the hospital venue, Dr. Parnell Patacsil, the resident surgeon Dr. Benjie Panaligan, The head of the Pediatrics Department Dr. Kitty Miranda and her sister Dr. Sony Zantua were all members of the medical society.

Mayor Nazareno ordered the completion of a new OR, a task that was finished in just one month and Toyota Philippines and Toyota Motor Parts, whose manufacturing plants are located in Santa Rosa’s export processing zone, lent two vans for the use of the medical team during their mission.

Breaking Records

The target number of patients of the Balik Ngiti project was 80, based on the suggestion of HCSI that its surgeons can operate on 10 patients a day in eight operating days. RC Santa Rosa Centro first announced the call for patients through the local barangay or community units and the church. After a few months, it posted the announcement several times in District 3820’s e-group, on top of personal calls to Rotary leaders in other towns and provinces. It also went on television, the Kaakbay program for community projects co-hosted by another Rotarian from District 3780, Dr. Mandy Saguin. This TV appearance plus the continuous announcements made by the program’s network, UNTV, also generated a big number of patients even from Metro Manila.

The pre-screening of patients from Santa Rosa and nearby places was done by the Sta. Rosa Medical Society. The other patients were pre-screened by doctors in their respective areas. But on February 25, the first day of the mission, HCSI doctors and nurses did their own pre-screening on the patients that poured into the community hospital from everywhere.

Six patients with their parents were accompanied by President Peachy Alfelor of RC Iriga of Albay, Bicol, some 8 hours from Santa Rosa. Eleven patients with their parents were accompanied by Rotarian Spouse and Quezon Province board member Baby Obispo all the way from Tayabas, Quezon, three hours away from Santa Rosa. PP Rene Mayo of RC Tiaong brought four patients. The ladies of RC Cabuyao Circle had five; PP Elmer Nido of RC Calamba, one; and Rtn. Gerry Briz of RC San Pablo South, one. The rest were sent by different Rotary clubs in the district, or saw the announcements in different venues.

Even when the target number of 80 was reached, patients still kept coming to the community hospital. The HCSI team led by President Mark Sierakowski found it difficult to say “no.” The mission’s two surgeons, Dr. Frank Kimble and Dr. Mihaela Hriscu, both from Tasmania, Australia, agreed to add another day of surgery.

At the end of the mission, all records were broken. For the first time in 12 years, HCSI interviewed 100 patients, operated on 91 and did a total of 115 surgical procedures, as many of the patients underwent both cleft lip and cleft palate operations. If one were to quantify the mission in financial terms, each operation could cost as much as P100,000. To multiply this to only 91 cases would translate to P9.1 million in economic benefits.

Mission Accomplished

Dr. Frank, in his green scrubs, comes out of the OR with his camera. He approaches the mother of the nine-month-old baby he just operated on for cleft lip and shows her the photos of her baby taken during the operation. “See? This is what we did to him,” he says to her soothingly. The mother, teary-eyed, looks at the photos endearingly, relief clearly showing on her face. “Your baby is now in the recovery room,” Dr. Frank continues. “He will sleep there for 20 minutes to half an hour and then the nurses will bring him out to you so you can go to your bed upstairs in the ward.”

Whenever they can, usually for the last patients of the day or before they break for lunch, the HCSI team talks to the parents anxiously waiting outside the OR. For the young patients waiting their turn, many crying out of hunger as they had been fasting since early morning, the team prepared bags of toys which distracted them. They even brought oatmeal for the patients’ soft diet after their operation.

Up in the ward, there are hardly any tears, something which baffled visitors. Either the children have a high threshold of pain or the surgeries were perfect. The whimpers, in fact, came from the mothers who were shedding tears of joy.

True to its title, this mission brought back the smile on young faces. But more than its title, Balik Ngiti brought an immeasurable joy in service felt by the project partners, enough for all of them to dream of the next mission.

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