News

March 12, 2013

Emver’s Emergency

Emver’s parents were worried. Earlier, they had been elated that their son had had his long awaited cleft lip surgery. It was now twelve days after surgery, however, and 18-month-old Emver was beginning to show signs of a serious infection.

January 10, 2013
By Eric Wall, Houston, Texas

View the video It's Their Time

Our son, David, constantly drooled. Because of his cleft palate, his bibs would get soaked. He would spit up volumes and required constant clean-up. It was a hard time for us, his family.

December 20, 2012

Remembering Marissa, ICSF’s First Poster Child

December 17, 2012

Poor children with cleft lips and palates, congenital absence of the ear, and burn deformities received free surgeries from ICSF in the countries of Vietnam, the Philippines, Mexico, and Peru.

December 16, 2012

By Dr. Geoffrey Williams, ICSF President

ICSF suffered a great loss on October 1, 2012, with the untimely death of Board of Directors member Dr. Michael Jensen. Dr. Jensen was a long-time and trusted friend of mine and was the first person I called upon when choosing ICSF’s initial Board of Directors in 2005.

December 15, 2012

A Mother’s Report

You never know just how much ICSF's work impacts the lives of its patients. Five-year-old Tara had come to ICSF’s 2011 medical mission with an asymmetric bilateral (two-sided) cleft lip and a cleft palate. All went well with Tara's lip surgery and again with her palate surgery in February 2012. In July 2012 Tara was transported to ICSF’s annual speech therapy mission on a nearby island, where she excelled in learning how to speak with her newly repaired palate.

August 05, 2012

Like usual, the first quarter of 2012 saw ICSF off to a running start — in spite of ICSF’s head of home operations, Beverly Williams, undergoing major shoulder joint replacement surgery. In January through March, ICSF served five missions to the countries of Mexico, Bolivia, and the Philippines, providing free surgery to 91 children and young adults suffering from congenital and traumatic deformities. A total of 16 missions are planned for the year, with seven in the Philippines.

August 04, 2012

When Ben Songahid, age seven, came to ICSF’s 2011 Kabankalan Philippines mission, he was very thin, like many other Filipino children. More importantly, however, Ben was found to be severely anemic, necessitating cancellation of his surgery.

August 03, 2012

Jowena’s Time

It certainly was not Jowena’s time in January, 2009. Jowena’s mother had brought her to ICSF’s annual Kabankalan, Philippines, cleft palate mission, hoping to have her daughter’s bilateral cleft lip corrected. The one-year-old little girl had come to the mission healthy, but when her scheduled day for surgery arrived, she had a high fever and a deep cough, necessitating the cancellation of her surgery. Jowena’s beautiful mother received the bad news politely. Her quiet reply, however, “OK, Doc, I understand,” could not hide her disappointment. Although her daughter was only one year old she could not be comforted with the news “You’ll be taken care of next year.”

August 01, 2012

How is it possible for an organization with no paid employees to do seven team missions per year in a poor country 10,000 miles away?

Design by Melissa Ventura, Development by Drew Bertola and Walter Martin.