A new hope for clubfoot kids

Children born with Clubfoot will be provided with free corrective surgery and treatment by the State Government, which on Wednesday entered into an agreement with CURE International India to work together to  eradicate disability caused by it in the State.

An MoU to this effect was signed by Health Secretary PK Mohapatra and Women and Child Development (WCD) Secretary Arti Ahuja with Director of CURE International India Santosh George here on Wednesday.

The WCD Department has already prepared a list of nearly 5000 children born with the condition, who will immediately benefit from implementation of the programme.

Clubfoot is among the most common causes of physical disabilities in newborns in the world. It twists the feet inward and around.

Around 50,000 children are born with Clubfoot deformity every year in the country with prevalence rate estimated to be around one in 500 to 750 births. Though no concrete data is available as many as 2000 children are estimated to be born with the deformity every year in the State.

Under the programme CURE will provide training on the Ponseti method of Clubfoot Management to orthopaedic surgeons in the State. It will provide counselling to the parents of children with Clubfoot so that they understand the problem and agree for the treatment and see through the entire course of treatment.

Medical records of every child would be maintained which would aid research on the deformity and the burden on the world. The organisation will also distribute Foot Abduction Brace free of cost to every child.

Under the programme, weekly Clubfoot clinics would be held at SCB Medical College and Hospital, Cuttack, VSS Medical College and Hospital, Sambalpur and MKCG Medical College and Hospital, Berhampur, Ispat General Hospital, Rourkela and District Headquarters Hospital of Koraput to screen patients and offer free treatment to them.

Odisha is the only State, where both the departments of Health and Family welfare and WCD have come together for a joint programme to address the issue of this congenital deformity. CURE International India currently works in partnership with the governments of Delhi, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Kerala, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Assam, Nagaland and Rajasthan where over 6500 children born with clubfoot have been enrolled in the last three years, Santosh George said.