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In this article, I reflect on how my 2020 “Close the Cleft” initiative as a third-year dentistry student in Nepal grew from a Miss Nepal “Beauty with a Purpose” project into rural outreach that helped pave the way for a free cleft lip and palate centre at Dhulikhel Hospital. I also share how working closely with healthcare workers and women’s groups in the Mount Everest region became a turning point that inspired me to step beyond the dental surgery room and pursue Health Administration studies in Australia, so I can contribute to stronger, more equitable health systems
Close the Cleft: A Beginning in Rural Nepal
It all started in 2020, the drive to touch lives for a better future, when I decided to start a project called “Close the Cleft” to treat children with cleft lip and palate in rural Nepal. I was a third-year student of dentistry in Nepal who happened to participate in a beauty pageant called Miss Nepal in 2020. All the contestants needed to have a “Beauty with a Purpose Project”. Mine was “Close the Cleft”. The head of the department of Community Dentistry at my university helped me organize a team. We moved from one outreach centre to another all across rural Nepal that my university hospital had, carrying the posters and the PowerPoint slides that we prepared regarding the diagnosis, causes, effects, prevention and treatments of cleft lip and palate, organizing awareness programs specifically catered for the local healthcare assistants working in those remote and rural regions so they could refer the children and adult with cleft lip and palate to our university hospitals for treatment. I didn’t win the pageant or the Beauty with a Purpose Project, and days passed by. We used to organize awareness programs in local schools whenever we had time, but all our team members got busy, including me with dental school. 3 years later, while I was interning as a dentist in the university hospital, my professor from the Department of Community Dentistry called me in for a meeting with a group of chairpersons and stakeholders. This was a meeting regarding establishing a cleft lip and palate centre in Dhulikhel Hospital (Kathmandu University Hospital, the university where I was studying dentistry), where children with cleft lip and palate from the rural area of Nepal would be treated for free, including the costs for their transportation and accommodation. Currently, hundreds of children with cleft lip and palate from rural Nepal get treatments, free of cost, at the hospital. One of the partners is SmileHigh Foundation, which is an Australian Organization.
A Butterfly Effect and a New Direction
Although my part in this is like a drop in the ocean, this gave me the courage to dream big. My tiny step of creating an awareness for the children of cleft lip and palate in rural Nepal led to a butterfly effect, which led to the establishment of a cleft lip and palate centre that now treats hundreds of children suffering from the condition. This was one of my major turning points to immerse myself in a non-clinical field and pursue a Master’s Degree in Health Administration.
Women’s Health in the Everest Region
Another one of my major turning points was when I was working with hundreds and thousands of women in rural Nepal around the Mount Everest region from all age groups, on the ground, touching their lives, while I was working with an organization called Foundation for International Development and Relief alongside my Community Dentist Professor. This organization had organized projects about improving the oral health and general hygiene of people residing around the rural Mount Everest region, and dentists were needed to train the local Healthcare Assistants, Female Community Health Volunteers, and Women’s groups in those regions, where we stepped in. This was a sign for me to step out of the world of dental surgery rooms and enter rural Nepal. I worked very hard with my team members and trained 40 Healthcare Assistants in the first project. In the second project, under the guidance of my Community Dentist Professor, we trained 40 Female Community Health Volunteers, and in the third project, we trained around 1200 women from the Women’s groups about the maintenance of oral and general hygiene, with menstrual hygiene included as well.
Closer to my dream
Being in Adelaide pursuing a Masters in Health Administration has broadened my horizon in ways I could not possibly imagine. Every workshop on every topic I attend brings me closer to my dreams and aspirations, as I learn new ways with every workshop to build a better healthcare framework globally. Moreover, the healthcare industry, as well as policy-level experiences and expertise shared by competitive guest lecturers who are the Chief Executive Officers, Scholars, and Experts of multinational healthcare companies, has helped me learn the pressing need for better healthcare policies and a strong foundation to build a better healthcare system. The workshops on healthcare leadership have helped me gain strong and insightful leadership skills, applicable during times that need resilience, like the pandemic and COVID-19. Similarly, sessions by expert policy makers have helped me learn about how, in order to make a change in the system, one should instill strong policies to make the change happen, and how years of research, consistency, determination, and hard work are required to develop strong policies.
I have started to see the healthcare system like a human body, which functions like a human body; if one part is unwell, the whole body suffers, hence showing the need for a holistic approach to well-being. Additionally, this has helped me understand how an organization’s productivity is affected by multiple factors and stakeholders, like workforce retention, strong leadership, quality of care delivered, and identification of problems and the approach of problem-solving. Moreover, I was awestruck by the wonders done by the technological advancements, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence in the healthcare industry involving the virtual healthcare and the telehealth care sector, especially in the rural and remote regions of Australia, which is undeniably a boon to humanity.
Moving forward, I am very keen to apply all my learnings and hone my skills and potential in the healthcare organizational sector and aim to lead a leading organization in healthcare in the global arena. As a healthcare professional who has been providing care in the remote and rural regions of Nepal, I believe in building a strong healthcare organizational framework that provides the highest quality of care and improves access to healthcare with minimal costs for all people, regardless of their race, ethnicity, financial background, or geographical location. As Nelson Mandela once said, “Everything seems impossible until it’s done”.
About the author
Shubhangi is currently a Master of Health Administration student at Flinders University, Adelaide. She is a dentist by training and has a deep interest in public health, gender, equity, health services management and leadership.
About Health Leadership Insights
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