Chief minister Tarun Gogoi lays the foundation stone of the cleft-care centre at Mahendra Mohan Choudhury Hospital in Guwahati on Sunday. Picture by Eastern Projections

Guwahati, May 24: Dispur has joined hands with Operation Smile to make Assam a cleft-free state by 2012, according to chief minister Tarun Gogoi.

The NGO, headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia, is offering free plastic surgery for the disadvantaged children overseas with facial deformities.

After laying the foundation stone of Operation Smile Comprehensive Cleft Care Centre at Mahendra Mohan Choudhury Hospital here this morning, Gogoi said the department of health and family welfare had entered into a public-private partnership with the NGO to provide comprehensive care to children with cleft deformities.

The centre, the first of its kind in the Northeast, was a step towards building infrastructure that would provide sustained care and support to children born with cleft deformities and creating a cleft-free Assam, Gogoi said.

It was the result of the public-private partnership, the chief minister said adding another such centre would be set up at the Assam Medical College and Hospital complex in Dibrugarh.

Health and family welfare minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the state government had aimed to create a “world record of sorts” by conducting reconstructive surgeries on a thousand patients suffering from cleft deformities at one go under a single roof in February.

“Every child deserves to live with dignity and this shared belief has brought together the government of Assam and Operation Smile to forge a relationship to guarantee smiles on the face of every child born with cleft deformity,” Sarma said.

Founders of Operation Smile Inc. William P. Magee Jr and Kathleen S. Magee along with the chairman of Operation Smile India, Ranjit Barthakur, among other dignitaries, were present at the function.

Sarma said the first Free Surgical Mission For People with Cleft Lip and Palate had brought smiles back on the faces of 158 children and their parents in Assam.

On the nine-day second phase of the programme called Free International Mission for People with Cleft Lip and Cleft Palate that began on May 21, Sarma said: “It is a reinforcement of that same belief that every child has the right to a life of dignity. Once again the government of Assam backed by the National Rural Health Mission has come together with Operation Smile with promises of more smiles.”

According to Sarma, 30,000 patients are awaiting cleft surgeries in the state and nearly 800 children are born every year with cleft deformities.