 |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
 |
||||||||||
 |
 |
Path：Facelifeing Doctors>Everlasting Love |
By December 1989, Dr. Noordhoff had been in Taiwan for 30 years. He denoted NT$3 million, his own savings over the years, to establish Noordhoff Craniofacial Foundation for lip and palate cleft children, because “an operation takes only one to two hours, but can reconstruct a life for these children.”Up to date, the Foundation has provided treatments for over 7,000 economically-disadvantaged children with craniofacial problems.
Goals of the Foundation
One of the purposes of the Foundation is to provide economic assistance for patients in need, as many cosmetic treatments are not covered by the National Health Insurance in Taiwan. However, the Foundation believes that everybody has the right to pursue beauty. In addition, a normal-looking face is highly relevant to self-esteem and interactions with others. Appropriate operations to amend lips and noses can make faces look more “normal”. Hence, the Foundation has always been providing subsidies to such treatments.
Dvd deliver knowledge regarding cleft lip and palate.
Considerable Services
The Foundation works with Chang Gung Craniofacial Center to host seminars to nurses responsible for public heath in remote areas. The doctors from Chang Gung Craniofacial Center instruct these nurses how to assist helpless parents whose newborn babies look different. In order to hold the hands of the children with cleft lip and palate in their growth process, the Foundation invites the children who have received operations to join summer camps every year so that these children can share their experience. The Foundation also subsidies the research and publication of the books for children to educate the public about congenital craniofacial deformities. In the first ten years since its establishment, the Foundation has helped close to 7,000 patients.
The smile of Dr. Noordhoff can melt the hearts of the young and the old.
Repair with Love
Ultrasonic scans leave no privacy to babies in the womb. Adults can now choose what they want with the help of medical devices. Do you want a baby with a hole on its face? The babies without privacy may be deprived of their basic right to live. For Dr. Noordhoff, the answer is very clear. He is opposed to the determination of an infant’s fate based on the fact whether it has a cleft lip and palate, because this defect can be repaired with love. In his eyes, any imperfections that can be repaired are no imperfections.
The group led by Dr. Noordhoff to provide free medical services was warmly welcomed by local residents in Cambodia.
A visit to a little patient during the free medical service in Vietnam.
Patients rushed in the hospital every day when the medical group offered free services in Vietnam.
Free Medical Services Overseas
The Foundation has reached out to economically challenged countries in South East Asia, such as Vietnam and the Philippines, and even as far as to Panama, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya. Dr. Noordhoff and his medical staff had travelled far and wide. In March 1999, he led a team of 12 medical professionals to visit Cambodia. Children and adults were packed in the very basic clinic.
All the medical doctors pay for their own expenses. The Foundation is responsible to the flight tickets of nurses and anesthesiologists. All the medical equipment is denoted to the Foundation. However, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital provides the key medical instruments. At each destination, Dr. Noordhooff did not only perform the operations, but also taught the local doctors the skills to repair cleft lip and palate. Sometimes, local doctors were invited to Taiwan to visit Chang Gung Memorial Hospital so that they could acquire the skills of repairing the cleft lip and palate.
In 2000, Dr. Noordhooff returned to the US for retirement. However, the medical talent development program he initiated for remote areas did not stop. Three doctors from the Philippines came to Chang Gung Memorial Hospital for training with Chang Gung Craniofacial Center. It is hoped that when they return, they can plant the seeds for Dr. Noordhooff to repair the cleft lip and palate for suffering children. Perhaps locals will no longer have to cry over their cleft lip and palate children. Dr. Noordhooff from the US said in Taiwan, “Any imperfections that can be repaired are not imperfections.”
References :
Yu-fang Liang(2000).《Love, To Mend the Imperfectness: Dr. Noordhooff’s Forty Years in Taiwan》.Taipei City:Common Wealth .
Image Sources :
Yu-fang Liang(2000).《Love, To Mend the Imperfectness: Dr. Noordhooff’s Forty Years in Taiwan》.Taipei City:Common Wealth .
Noordhoff Craniofacial Foundation.
