500th Cleft Lip Operation Celebrated at RVI
Celebration
Our 500th patient was 3 month old Charlie Outerside who was born in October of last year with a gap in the upper lip, known as a cleft lip and is one of around 60 babies across the North of England who will need the operation this year.
Charlie’s parents have been preparing for all of this since before he was born when Charlie’s cleft lip was spotted on an ante-natal ultrasound scan and although they are feeling nervous before the surgery, are looking forward to seeing Charlie when it is all over.
Mr Hodgkinson explained what would happen during Charlie’s operation,
“What I do is open up the lip and find the muscles in the lip because the muscles are in the wrong place when there’s a cleft lip. These muscles have then got to be put into the right place and the nose straightened, the muscles all get repaired and the skin gets repaired. It will probably take about two hours this morning – it’s quite delicate work.”
The operation is a complete success and Charlie will need to come back to hospital in another three months time for some more surgery and then again before he goes to school leaving Charlie with a normal looking lip.
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