ABOUT US > Guiding principles 

Help for cleft children - our principles

High standards of quality

We strive to guarantee the highest medical standards of quality in the surgery and treatment of our little patients. With the help of our highly experienced doctors we can provide the local surgeons with further training in surgical techniques to treat the various types of clefts in individual advanced training programmes. Our teams of German doctors, who provide this training on a voluntary basis, and our Indian training partners have profound medical knowledge and years of practical experience.



High standards of quality

Interdisciplinary treatment

Whereever possible we also provide specialized advanced training to local anaesthesiologists and therapists as well as social workers and nursing staff. Our goal is to eventually establish interdisciplinary treatment centres for children with cleft lip and palate in all of our host countries. Only when both the surgical procedures and the complex interdisciplinary aftercare treatment, which includes orthodontics, ENT treatment and speech therapy, have been performed to the highest medical standards can an optimal success of the treatment be guaranteed, and thus the best possible life for the cleft children and their families.



Interdisciplinary

Sustainable development

Our work is guided by the principle of capacity building - helping others to help themselves. In the project countries we work together with the local supporting organisations, some of which were co-initiated by us. We see our role as providing a starting aid to enable our partners to quickly assume control over all the tasks themselves. By training local doctors and setting up aid structures in the respective countries we can keep the costs of the operations low while at the same time maintaining the highest medical standards.



Sustainable

Accountability and tangible successes

Our organisation provides a modern form of development aid which does not distribute alms or create dependencies, but advances the medical development in the project countries. It also only pays for verifiable services. We only remunerate the surgeons with the agreed-upon fee for the operation when the procedure has actually been performed, as documented by photographs uploaded to our patient database and checked by us. The costs of an operation - currently around 250 Euros - cover informing and educating the parents, transport to the hospital, the necessary initial examinations, laboratory work and medication, the surgical procedure itself and the anaesthetics as well as the inpatient stay.



Tangibility

International cooperation

Deutsche Cleft Kinderhilfe has succeeded in establishing an international medical community which ensures the transfer of knowledge and quality management within all of the projects through our long-term cooperation with specialist doctors from all over of the world. The organization of international congresses for the comprehensive treatment of cleft lips and palates is part of the foundation of our work, as is the evaluation of the surgery that was performed. We currently operate on cleft children in twelve project countries and work with more than 150 doctors, therapists, nurses and social workers.



International