Mexico

Operation Smile has been providing surgical care and support in Mexico since 2006, where approximately 3,500 children are born with a cleft condition every year.

Visit Operation Smile Mexico’s Website

Operation Smile Mexico: By the Numbers

For many families in Mexico, access to surgery simply isn’t an option. We’re changing that reality for communities across the country.

2006

Year Services Began in Mexico

6,400+

Cleft Surgeries

60+

Surgical Programs

Expanding Access to Care

To ensure that every child has access to care close to home, we equip the providers within our patients’ communities with skills and resources to deliver high-quality care. We build the needed capacity by harnessing the talent and resources that exist within the country, usually in the bigger cities, the hubs, to train providers in under-resourced areas, the spokes, where most patients lack access to care.

Operation Smile has a hub at lnnovare Hospital in Guadalajara. This year, our first spoke, Hospital de Alta Espesialidad in Yucatan, will provide care for patients. Another spoke has been identified in Chiapas and will be established within five years.

We deliver surgical care in Monterrey, Puebla, Chiapas, Guadalajara and Mexico City.

Operation Smile provides non-surgical cleft services in Nuevo Leon, Baja California Norte, Coahuila, Jalisco, Puebla, Mexico City, Colima, Michoaca, Oaxaca and Chiapas.

Five-Year Vision

Over the next five years, Operation Smile will expand high-quality comprehensive care for patients living with cleft lip and cleft palate.

Operation Smile projects to provide surgeries for approximately 4,250 patients and comprehensive cleft care consultations to over 7,500 patients.

Over the course of the following five years, Operation Smile will provide American Heart Association training courses and training exchanges, which will include hands-on transfer of knowledge, clinical observations and workshops. Operation Smile volunteers will participate in the National Cleft Congress, the Dental Congress and the Speech Congress

Our Partners

Operation Smile partners with key stakeholders to increase access to cleft care in Mexico.

We work closely with the Ministry of Health of Chiapas and the Ministry of Health of Jalisco, which grant authorization to conduct surgical programs.

Operation Smile’s surgical programs are also made possible by our partnership with Rotary International, which provides transportation and food for patients who need travel to reach our hospital partners.

In Jalisco, Chiapas, Nuevo, Leon and Oaxaca, the National System for Comprehensive Family Development recruits and refers patients with cleft conditions to Operation Smile programs.