The update for Lockdown 3 is that Primary surgeries – Lip & Palate – are going ahead as they did for previous lockdowns. Bonegraphs had almost caught up from the previous lockdowns. They are on hold but will be scheduled asap after the current lockdown. Adult surgeries are on hold. Face to face clinics are also on hold but a plan is being worked on to ‘catch up’ as soon as possible after lockdown. Cleft staff are still working and are still contactable. Please make contact with them if you have any worries or concerns, From experience we know how much emotional energy goes into appointments and moreso surgeries. The team are working hard to keep us and themselves safe so that we can all of us hit the ground running when we get the okay.

Bottles & Teats have arrived.  The first batches are packed and ready to send to maternity hospitals.  You can see we are using An Post’s distinctive delivery boxes so that the bottles will be easily identifiable plus the boxes are a good size to store on a busy ward. 

At 9:52 on Christmas Eve we still do not have clarity on BREXIT plus COVID has meant no deliveries from UK anyway.  If it were not for the generousity of families fundraising for CLAPAI, it would not have been possible for us to secure the bottles.  A heartfelt thanks to you.  Thank you also to the Transition Year Students of Loreto Abbey Dalkey who did a massive job assembling the bottles and then packing bottles & teats into bags.  258 starter packs created out of 500+ bottles & 1,000+ teats.  Go raibh mile maith agaibh. 

Keep watching this site for updated bottle arrangements. Hospitals should email info@cleft.ie for delivery information. 

You will probably be aware by now that, as a result of the COVID-19 situation, we have had to postpone all planned surgery and clinics until we are over the worst of the epidemic. At this stage, we don’t know how long that will be, but it will be much sooner if we all pull together and follow the HSE advice on hand washing, social distancing and reporting symptoms so that we can be tested and isolated early­­ (https://www2.hse.ie/coronavirus/). Meanwhile, here is some information that you will hopefully find reassuring.

Delayed surgery

Fortunately, the risk of serious illness in children from COVID-19 is very low and much lower than in adults. However, that risk increases with anaesthesia and recovery from surgery so we have postponed all but really urgent surgery. Also, we need to keep as much of our resource as possible free to deal with a surge of COVID-19 cases.

We are confident that a delay of a few months in your child’s surgery is not going to affect the long term outcomes. When we schedule the surgery we leave plenty of leeway for all sorts of delays and when these happen we have plenty of time to catch up. We are keeping a careful and accurate record of all of the postponed surgery and as soon as things get back to normal we will prioritise the children who have been delayed and work hard to catch up as quickly as possible.

Delayed clinics

Laura and Claire (our cleft co-ordinators) are keeping account of all of the appointments for the postponed clinics. We will reschedule these when the worst of the crisis has passed and as soon as we get the go ahead. Because we have control over organising and scheduling appointments within the cleft team we can be pretty sure that no-one is going to get missed or forgotten about. Again, we will be back on track and working hard to catch up as soon as things settle down.

New referrals

During this time there will be babies born with clefts and expectant mothers who get an antenatal diagnosis that their baby has a cleft. We will be making individual arrangements to take care of those families.

We will put up a further message on the website as soon as we are in a position to start rescheduling clinics and surgery. You may also find it useful to access the Children’s Health Ireland website at https://www.chi.ie for general information updates.

Until then, if you have any pressing issues or concerns about your child, please feel free to contact Laura or Claire as usual.

Stay safe and well and follow the HSE guidelines.

Dublin Final Report on Parent Led Articulation Therapy 270718

Dr Triona Sweeney and Dr Debbie Sell recently published the Report on Parent Led Therapist Supervised Articulation Therapy (PLAT) for cleft palate speech disorder study (attached).

This two-centre study involving Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (GOSH) was carried out between January 2016 and July 2017. The main purpose was to test if parent led intervention is comparable to traditional speech therapy intervention in children with cleft palate speech disorders.

The study was funded by the Cleft Lip and Palate Association of Ireland, the Temple Street Foundation (Ireland) and CLEFT-Bridging the Gap (UK).