Abstract
A lucky country
Highlights
Timor-Leste is a third world country on Australia’s doorstep
The cleft patients examined were assessed for further treatment and most needed additional surgical repair to graft alveolar clefts, close fistulae and generally repair the hard palates
A sixteen-year-old boy with an unrepaired hard and soft palate had been banned from school classes because his speech was so unintelligible that his teacher could not understand him
Summary
Timor-Leste is a third world country on Australia’s doorstep. A little over an hour’s flight from Darwin lands passengers in Dili, where the obligatory entry tax was applied and airport screening detected the smuggled dental materials in our checked-in luggage. A group of orthodontic postgraduate students from the University of Adelaide visited Timor-Leste to learn from and help in the management of patients suffering cleft lip and/or palate. Teams of plastic surgeons have been visiting the country to perform surgical repair of the lip to make affected children aesthetically presentable. Due to the lack of dental and orthodontic services, further treatment has not been possible and the cleft patients have been left to endure their physical and psychological disability.
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