Vice President Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh (blue jacket) and the children during her visit to the Vietnam-Cuba (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – Vice President Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh, who is also President of the Council of the National Fund for Vietnamese Children (NFVC), visited and presented gifts to children with cleft lip and palate at the Vietnam – Cuba hospital in Hanoi on April 20.
Eighty gifts, worth 500,000 VND (22 USD) each, were delivered to the children, who are currently under treatment of an orthopaedic surgery programme organised by the hospital and Operation Smile.
The programme offers cleft lip and palate surgeries for about 100 children free of charge this time.
Vice President Thinh urged doctors, nurses and families to care for the children and help them recover after operations.
She said she is looking forward to further engagement of sponsors in the programme for the sake of the young generation.
Every year, about 2,000 Vietnamese children are born with the deformities.
Since 1994, the NFVC launched free corrective operations for the group and extended the initiative in 1997 by cooperating with Operation Smile.
The NFVC has so far supported nearly 30,000 children, with operation costs amounting to almost 70 billion VND (3.08 million USD).
Operation Smile has carried out operations on nearly 40,000 children with facial deformities in Vietnam over the past 27 years.
It plans to carry out 2,500 surgeries this year.-VNA
VNA
