Speech Therapy
America Nepal Medical Foundation has been supporting a year-long training of paramedics in speech therapy for cleft palate patients since January 2004 at Kathmandu Model Hospital, Nepal. Four paramedics/nurses are undergoing this training in basic speech therapy for cleft palate patients so that they will be able to provide this much needed service out in the periphery where most of our cleft patients come from. More than 800 cleft palate patients have been operated free of cost by Interplast Surgical Outreach Program with Smile Train now based at the Kathmandu Model Hospital. Interplast, USA has been providing the funding support for speech therapy to these patients at different peripheral sites 6 times a year for a week. Cleft palate patients who had already undergone palate surgery are called with their parents/guardians to spend the whole week with the speech therapists. Food and lodging is provided to them for that duration. One or two speech therapists provide their service to all the patients during the whole week. These week long camps have been organized in smaller towns outside Kathmandu. Unfortunately, six camps a year do not provide adequate therapy for all the patients spread all over the country.
To give the full benefit of the cleft palate surgery, especially when the surgery is done in an age above the ideal one (12months) , post operative speech therapy is very important. The therapy has to be protracted to be of any benefit. Since most of our patients are coming from the periphery, it is essential that the service is available to them at a place nearer to their homes. The small number of speech pathologists in Nepal has been a limiting factor for speech therapy service available to the majority who need them. The necessity of training the paramedics in post palate surgery speech therapy was recognized and a year-long training of four paramedics since January 2004 has been funded generously by the America Nepal Medical Foundation. The aim of training has been to make the paramedics able to assist the speech pathologists who will diagnose and formulate a therapy plan which could be carried out by the trained paramedics under intermittent supervision of the pathologists.
After the completion of the speech therapy training in the beginning of January 2005, these four paramedics/nurses will be posted in the peripheral sites to provide the speech therapy on a more regular basis. Each paramedic/nurse will cover two sites a month, spending two weeks at each site. Thus, four of them will cover eight sites a month over the whole year. Wherever the children needing therapy are in schools, the paramedics will visit them there as far as possible and provide therapy.
Thus, this program will a) take the speech therapy service to the peripheral sites closer to the homes of the patients, b) continue the training/education of the four paramedics in speech therapy.
Shankar Man Rai
Kathmandu Model Hospital
ShankarRai
hotmail.com
Telephone (Voice): 009810-51750, (Office): 00977-1-4240806
For more information, see Speech therapy program for cleft palate patients in the peripheral sites of Nepal or contact ANMF.
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