Currently we are performing operations at more than two dozen locations in India. We are growing in both numbers of surgeries and in terms of quality, as the centers are increasingly able to offer full comprehensive interdisciplinary treatment of the patients. To further expand this effort, we are dependent on a steadily increasing level of financing.

The unmet need of help for cleft patients in India remains enormous. Surveys provided during the International Conference on Comprehensive Cleft Care in November of 2013 in Guwahati/Assam estimate that on average some 50,000 children with cleft lip and palate are born in India every year. On top of this there are an estimated one million people already living with cleft that have not yet had the operation, since large parts of the Indian population have no access to medical care. Approximately every tenth cleft child in India dies before its first birthday.

With the more than 2.000 operations and follow-on treatment that we can perform annually we are making an important contribution towards making high-quality cleft care available to every patient in India. And each operation costs a mere 250 Euro!

Join the effort!

Our local partner

The Indian partner organization of Deutsche Cleft Kinderhilfe is the NGO ABMSS (Akhila Bharatha Mahila Sema Samaja), which is based in Bengaluru. The trust is managed by Mr Dushyant Prasad who, together with a team of five colleagues, regularly scouts for new operating locations, sets and maintains standards of treatment, develops the educational effort and search for affected children and ensures proper documentation of treatments. ABMSS has a permit issued by the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs to receive overseas donations and is accountable to it by notification through annual audits. The trust also raises donations in India itself, a process that is increasingly showing results. About 20% of the operations in India are financed through Indian donors - a great success!

Our centre managers

Agra / Uttar Pradesh: Dr Gaurav Gupta
The children that Dr Gupta operates on are mostly from the rural parts of the densely-populated and predominantly agriculturally structured federal state of Uttar Pradesh. With more than 190 million inhabitants in an area the size of the United Kingdom, Uttar Pradesh, along with Bihar, is among the most densely populated regions in the world. Dr Gupta's wife and parents assist him wherever they can - which enables him to achieve the large numbers of operations that he performs each year.

Ahmadabad / Gujarat: Dr Rishabh Shah
Dr Shah is director of our cleft centre at the Anand Surgical Hospital in Ahmedabad.

Aurangabad / Maharashtra: Dr Ujwala V Dahiphale
Dr Dahiphale is director of our cleft centre at the Dahiphale Hospital in Aurangabad.

Bangalore / Karnataka: Dr. B.S.Jayanth
Dr Jayanth is director of our cleft centre at the Rangadore Memorial Hospital in Bangalore.

Bhubaneswar / Odisha: Dr Nitish Kumar Panda
The cleft centre Bhubaneswar treats cleft children in Odisha, India's second-poorest federal state. The help is especially aimed at the indigenous population, the "Adivasi", who make up more than a fifth of the 42 million-strong population. They live in the forest areas of this mountainous federal state (up to 1,600 m) and often do not have any access to healthcare facilites. The cleft centre is located in the Sri Sri Borda Hospital in the state capital Bhubaneswar.

Chennai / Tamilnadu: Dr R.V.M. Surya Rao
Dr. Rao is director of our cleft centre at the Saveetha Medical College Hospital in Chennai.

Cuttack / Odisha: Dr Abhitosh Debata
Dr Debata is director of our cleft centre at the Health Care Nursing Home in Cuttack.

Goa / Goa: N.N.
Our cleft centre in Goa is located at the Goa Dental College And Hospital.

Hyderabad / Telengana: Dr. Vijay Kumar
Dr Vijay Kumar has been operating on cleft patients in Hyderabad for more than ten years. Since April of 2015 we have started to work together with the experienced oral and maxillofacial surgeon. In 2016 he realized 322 surgeries! Hyderabad is the capital of the federal state of Telangana, which was established in 2014, and is the fourth-largest city in India. Dr Kumar's patients are from the city, but also from far distant rural regions where medical facilities are not readily available.

Hyderabad / Telengana: Dr C Charan Kumar Reddy
Dr Reddy is director of our cleft centre at the Ramdev Rao Hospital in Hyderabad.

Hyderabad / Telengana: Dr Neeti Rajagopalan
Dr Rajagopalan is director of our cleft centre at the AVIS Hospitals India Limited in Hyderabad.

Katra / Jammu and Kashmir: Dr Arjun Malhotra
Dr Malhotra is director of our cleft centre at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Narayana Superspeciality Hospital in Katra.

Jodhpur / Rajasthan: Dr Raghavendra S Kurdekar
Dr Kurdekar is director of our cleft centre at Medipulse Hospital in Jodhpur.

Kolkata / West Bengal: Dr Siddhartha Chatterjee
Dr Chatterjee is director of our cleft centre at Shree Jain Hospital And Research Centre in Kolkata.

Mangalore / Karnataka: Dr. Naveen Rao
Dr Naveen Rao is an independent private surgeon in the city of Mangaluru and has been treating cleft patients in his practice for several years. With our help he intends to expand his activities in this area. It is against this background that he chose as the location for his operations a larger hospital whose management is open toward the idea of establishing a cleft centre for patients from poor backgrounds. We are happy to have Dr Rao on our team, a dedicated and experienced surgeon.

Mangalore / Karnataka: Dr Hari Kishore Bhat
Dr Bhat is director of our cleft centre at Yenepoya Medical And Dental Hospital in Mangalore.

Mumbai / Maharashtra: Dr. Dr. Nisheet Agni
With its 30 million inhabitants the business centre of Mumbai is India's largest city. Dr Dr Nisheet Agni operates in the Navneet Hi-Tech Hospital, which lies in the north of the city, close to the international airport. He is one of the youngest centre managers, yet has great experience in what he does. In India the training to become a surgeon starts early and is usually completed without major interruptions. After completing the nine-year-long education he became a fellow (intern) at one of our centres and managed his time there with flying colours.

Mumbai / Maharashtra: Dr. Rangnath Jhawar
Dr Jhawar is director of our cleft project at Dr D Y Patil Vidyanagar and Vivekanand Multispeciality Hospital in Mumbai.

Mysore / Karnataka: Dr. Manu Prasad
Dr Manu Prasad’s career as cleft surgeon started as assistant at the cleft centre Ahmadabad, later surgeon in Mangalore and Bangalore. In 2013 we were able to hand over to him the management of the cleft centre Mysore. The cleft centre is located in the St Joseph's hospital and has been working from the outset on interdisciplinary treatment. The surgeon, orthodontist, dentist, speech therapist, paediatrician and anaesthetist are all on one floor of the building.

Nagpur / Maharashtra: Dr Darshan Ramkrishna Rewanwar
Dr Rewanwar is director of our cleft centre at Nelson Mother and Child Care Hospital in Nagpur.

Patna / Bihar: Dr. Uma Shankar
Some 100 million people live on an area just a bit larger than Portugal in India's poorest federal state. The state's capital Patna is the second largest city in north-eastern India, only eclipsed by Kolkata. Establishing a drop-in centre for families with cleft children here was something that we had wished for a long time to be able to do. Dr Shankar is not only hard-working and operating with great enthusiasm but also extremely reliable and an ideal partner for us.

Pandharpur / Maharashtra: Dr Sagar Satish Jangam
Dr Jangam is director of our cleft centre at Navjeevan Children's Hospital in Pandharpur.

Pune / Maharashtra: Dr Pushkar Waknis
The two cleft centres in Maharashtra are located in the cities of Mumbai and Pune and lie just about 150km apart. Even though Pune is a thriving economic centre, more than a third of its inhabitants live on less than €2 a day. That puts health insurance firmly out of reach for many of our patients.

Raipur / Chhattisgarh: Dr. Nirved Jain
The German oral and maxillofacial surgeon Dr Dr Götz Ehmann discovered the plastic surgeon Dr Nirved Jain while visiting in Raipur and managed to bring us together. She is a true gem when it comes to surgery and is a great part of the team. Chhattisgarh, along with Odisha and Bihar is one of the poorer Indian federal states. Lots of cleft patients are from the still quite inaccessible forest regions.

Sangli / Maharashtra: Dr Amit A Basannavar
Dr Basannavar is director of our cleft centre at Bharati Vidyapeeth Dental College And Hospital in Sangli.

Surat / Gujarat: Dr. Nehal Patel
Surat is a large industrial city, not far north of Mumbai. Dr Patel is not only an excellent surgeon, but also an accomplished organiser. Originally set out as a smaller cleft centre, the actual number of children operated on, most of them from the rural areas, is gigantic. Every year Dr Patel organizes a large number of information camps in the countries' interior.

Tirupati / Andhra Pradesh: Dr C Charan Kumar Reddy
Dr Reddy is director of our cleft centre at Sankalpa Super Speciality Hospital in Tirupati.

Varanasi / Uttar Pradesh: Dr Ravi Kant Singh
Dr Singh is director of our cleft centre at Peace Point Hospital in Varanasi.

Visakhapatnam / Andhra Pradesh: Dr. Siva Reddy
Dr Reddy is a first-class surgeon and optimally networked in Visakhapatnam. Local organizations assist him intensively with the educational work and in the search for the children. The patients are mostly from the rural areas of Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram, Srikakulam, East and West Godavari and the neighboring mountainous regions of southern Orissa and Chhattisgarh.

Visakhapatanam / Andhra Pradesh: Dr Sunita G Yelaverthi
Dr Yelaverthi is director of our cleft centre at Apollo Hospital ub Visakhapatanam.

Join the effort!

Please join us and support the effort to increase the breadth and scope of our treatment offerings in India. The Cleft Group is one of the main international organizations promoting and delivering comprehensive cleft care there. Cleft children need long-term support, with further treatments often being necessary until adulthood. Thus we are looking for long-term sponsorships to take decisive steps forward.