History

Clefts of lip and/or palate are complicated complex pathology, and it`s rehabilitation problems has discussed for ages. Nowadays, performing appropriate professional treatment methods, the best results are achievable. Child, born as handicapped becomes a wholesome person in society.
As far it is known, in Latvia German doctors had performed surgery on cleft lip and palate children at the end of 19th and the beginning of 20th centuries, mainly in the Central children hospital. However, scientific investigations and innovations of the operation methods begun only at the end of twenties and beginning of thirties at the last century, when the next well-known surgeon Professor Aleksandrs Bieziņš (1897-1975) started to perform surgery. He introduced his own methodology on cleft palate closure, known as ‘Bieziņš 1’and ‘Bieziņš 2’. Even then thesis of necessity of more softly and less traumatic cleft palate closure, important for further jaw development, appeared. At the end of forties, Professor Bieziņš involved in his work a young surgeon, next professor Indulis Bākulis (1922-1976), who besides general practical surgery, focused more on the cleft surgery and scientific investigations. He wrote and presented a scientific work about results of cleft treatment and palatal cleft surgery at 1955; he continued his investigations, but then - on complete cleft lip and palate, collected the results in his Doctor`s of Sciences work, presented it at 1966, already in position as the head of Department of Surgical Dentistry of Medical Institute of Latvia.
We honour both professors - Aleksandrs Bieziņš and Indulis Bākulis, as the founders of cleft treatment in Latvia.
Comprehending the complex sense of the pathology, both professors cooperate and completed a team of doctors, which at the 1964 started to perform a complex rehabilitation, with a great respect to ortodontic treatment. The Centre of Prevention and Treatment for children with clefts (now - Cleft Lip and Palate Centre) was founded, and worked, leaded by Professor Indulis Bākulis, under the Department of Surgical Dentistry. Such well-known specialists in Latvia then, as pediatrist Ivars Ēbelis, speech pathologist Ņina Ģērmane, psycho-neurologist Aelita Freinberga, orthodontist Silvija Jonaite was involved in the cleft team. Fifties and sixties was the time, when West-European countries started to establish their cleft centres. Then, in the Soviet Union, our Center, the same as the Centers from Sverdlovsk and Leningrad (now - Sankt-Petersburg), was one of the first, and children from all Soviet Union has sent for the treatment here.
From the 1964 in Riga Cleft Centre works maxillo-facial surgeon Biruta Barkāne. She was a head of the Cleft team for a long time period, and has done a lot of work to keep the functions of the Centre after 1991, when Latvia restored it`s independency.
Today Riga Cleft Lip and Palate Centre work in the structure of Institute of Stomatology.