A pat on the back for all our volunteers, supporters, surgeons, anaesthetists, nurses and our Filipino colleagues for a job well done.
Alia Cortes,an ORHA patient, before and after 1998 surgery, and in 2005 singing with Nurse Maureen Eddison, our Cebu Coordinator whose first mission was 1998 when Alia was treated.

Operation Restore Hope Australia was very active in November 2004, spending two weeks in Cebu with two missions, one headed by Dr Geoff McKellar and Dr Ann Collins and the other by Dr Robin Dyleski, co-ordinated by Nurse Maureen Eddison RN in Cebu. 130 patients were operated upon.

To our gratification an evening of celebration for ten years’ service on over 1,000 patients was arranged and one of our early patients, who had a cleft lip and palate repaired, sang to us as did other patients during the celebration. This was a moment of joy for us and one of the reasons that we stay in the same communities is to take the responsibility of seeing these children grow up, go to school and become useful members of our society. To have a child waste their life because they could not have a cleft lip or palate operation is a tragedy we are trying to avert.

Second Centre in Manila
Our other team operated in Manila at a new hospital, the President Diosdada Macapagal Memorial Medical Center. This was a new facility but with very few instruments or equipment, so we totally equipped the hospital with operating beds, anaesthesia machines, monitors and sterilizers. We also stocked the hospital with necessary sutures, bandages and anaesthetic medications.
Our team comprised three Anaesthetists, three Surgeons, eight Nurses and two Administrators none of whom received any financial compensation. They operated on 57 patients doing 67 operations - and these were complex operations. We performed 30 cleft palate operations in that time, difficult and demanding procedures but imperative to perform because the patients will not be able to speak unless the gap in their palate is repaired early in life.

Throughout the year, the Australian Filipino community has been a wonderful sponsor to us, with Mrs Via Hoffman and her team working tirelessly raising funds and organising the infrastructure both here and in the Philippines, invaluable to the success of the mission.

We ask for membership from you to help us keep up this good work.

We are already planning our next year’s mission as this goes to press and are excited by the fact that we are now associated with the Central Manila University and integrated into the teaching programs for Filipino Anaesthetists and Surgeons at that University.

Caloocan Hospital has four operating rooms, partly equipped and it is spacious, clean and recently renovated. Its great attraction besides of the enthusiasm of the medical administration and nursing staff is its association with a major University – Central Manila University with a Medical School and back-up laboratory X-ray including CAT scan and staff, including residents in training in Otolaryngology.

We were asked to screen some of the children on whom we will likely be operating on in February 2005 and we saw approximately 50 children, the photos of which are on the web.

An agreement has been signed with the hospital and our Manila-based equipment has been moved into place at Caloocan Hospital. Another shipment of equipment including anaesthesia machines has also been shipped to the hospital.

We will be able to have follow-up of the patients who are already operated on at Paranaque and we expect to be able to treat about 100 children in the February 2005 mission. The accommodation of the staff is excellent and next to a very large mall which should suit the shoppers.

Operation Restore Hope Australia is a community based effort. We make commitments to a community and we started this in Cebu 14 years ago. We have had the realization of a dream to try and repair children’s cleft lip and palate deformities prior to these children attending school. A child who is still with a cleft lip and palate at school age, has missed the opportunity to begin their education on an equal footing with their peers and our mission is to prevent this misfortune. Our challenge continues and our commitment remains strong.