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Our stories from around the world highlight the courage of patients and their families, the dedication of our volunteers and staff, and the generosity of supporters like you.
In Ghana, Operation Smile’s hub and spoke model of care is tackling the shortfall of trained surgeons and specialists, and putting safe surgery and cleft care in reach of more people.
Plastic surgeon and Operation Smile volunteer Dr (Wg Cdr) Ankur Pandya tells us more about his work in burns care and complex reconstructive surgery around the world.
Growing up in rural Ghana with an untreated cleft condition was tough. On the rare occasions Hannah did go to school, she would often run home to escape the cruel taunts from other children.
Volunteer nurse Naggie Tsang has recently returned from an Operation Smile surgical programme in Morocco. After her return to the UK, Naggie sat down with us to discuss her experience with Operation Smile.
With many patients living in remote areas without the means to travel long distances, Ghana’s speech therapy programme has gone mobile to solve the problem.
We caught up with volunteer nutritionist Georgina, at the Korle Bu Teaching hospital in Accra to find out more about her life-saving work with the nutrition team in Ghana.
Find out how our surgical programmes are strengthening local health systems and training the next generation of medical leaders.
Training anaesthetists in Rwanda
Anaesthesia is vital to the delivery of safe surgery, but there is a dramatic shortage of trained anaesthetists in Rwanda. In this densely populated country, 11.9 million people are served by just 15 anaesthetists and anaesthesiologists.
Dr Paulin Banguti is working to fill this void – he’s director of the post-graduate anaesthesia programme at the University of Rwanda. During the March 2016 Operation Smile surgical training rotation at Rwinkwavu District Hospital, he led a group of anaesthesia residents to observe and learn from volunteer anaesthesiologists from around the world.
To enable Operation Smile to serve and treat more people living with cleft conditions, we focus on increasing the surgical capacity of low-and middle-income countries like Malawi so that cleft care for local people can continue, even after a surgical programme ends.
Operation Smile Malawi has worked to encourage and educate local surgeons, doctors and nurses, and now has nearly 50 percent of its medical volunteers from Malawi. Surgical training rotations train and empower local surgeons to help their own communities and strengthen health systems for the future.
