A patient being prepared for the Surgery |
The Ghana Reconstruction of
Anomaly and Trauma Fund popularly referred to as the GRAFT Foundation , a
non-governmental charity medical organisation, as part of its Hope Projects, have restored the lives of 106 underprivileged
persons in the Volta region, who were suffering from various medical deformities
and complicated anomalies acquired from birth or accident.
The NGO led by its founder
Dr. Kwame Abrokwaa Yankyera with his team of volunteer Ghanaian Plastic
Surgeons, Anesthetics, Urologists, Orthodontists and Nurses conducted free
Reconstructive Plastic Surgeries on patients (including babies), some of whom
travelled from Kete-Krachie, Dambai, Nkwanta and other parts of the region to
the Volta Regional Hospital in Ho.
The exercise which begun on
August1-9th, saw the team work tirelessly to rectify anomalies such as, Cleft lip and Palate, Burn related
complications, (Ectropion and Contracture) Syndactaly (fused fingers), Tumours
and Swellings as well as Genital Filariasis (Abnormal Swelling of the Scrotum).
Dr. Kwame Abrokwaa Yankyera,
who is also head of the Plastic Surgery and Burns department of the 37 Military
Hospital in an exclusive Whatsapp message to this reporter, said ‘We finished surgeries (with the 106th
person) on Saturday, 9th August at exactly 4:19PM.. We take glory
not in the numbers but giving hope to these people and making them productive
again, all to the glory of God’.
In July, Dr. Abrokwaa
Yankyera and his team of volunteers screened over 250 Patients with such
medical conditions at both the Regional and Hohoe Government hospitals and
those who conditions do not required surgery were given medications.
He explained that, the
foundation initiated the Hope Projects in 2013 with the aim of bringing hope to
the medically hopeless in the country, who have no idea that such anomalies can
be corrected and as well cannot afford the cost plastic surgery.
The GRAFT foundation, through
its first Hope Projects in 2013 change the lives of 92 persons in the 3
northern regions, Central and Western regions. A feat that won Dr. Abrokwaa
Yankyera a cash prize of 50,000 Ghana Cedis, after he was nominated and
adjudged the winner of the first ‘MTN
Heroes of Change’ programme organised by the MTN-Ghana Foundation.
The success of last year’s
project, according to the benevolent Plastic Surgeon motivated the foundation
to include the Volta and Eastern regions this year’.
Dr. Abrokwaa Yankyera
expressed gratitude to the staff and management of the Volta Regional Hospital for
their support during the exercise and also appealed to benevolent individuals
and institutions to support the GRAFT foundation financially and materially to
sustain the Hope Project.
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