Ethiopia

In Ethiopia 1, in a 500 to 750 children are born with a cleft condition. With a population of 123.4 million, there are only 23 plastic surgeons who can take care of the needs for the country.

Operation Smile Ethiopia: By the Numbers

In Ethiopia, children affected by cleft conditions receive access to safe surgery and multidisciplinary support.

2005

Year Services Began in Ethiopia

3,900+

Surgical Patients

25+

Certified Volunteers

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.

In Ethiopia, Jimma University Medical Center (JUMC) in Jimma, St. Paul’s Hospital Medical College in Addis Ababa and Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital in Mekele serve as our hubs, providing year-round care to our patients.

Within five years, Operation Smile will establish one additional hub and two spoke hospitals.

Five-Year Vision

Within the next five years, Operation Smile will expand training opportunities for the health workforce and enhance the quality of cleft care in Ethiopia.

Operation Smile will provide education and training to around 2,000 health workers across various specialties. We will form six cleft surgical teams in all five regions of the nation.

Operation Smile will expand its patient outreach by opening an additional hub and two spokes.

Within the next five years, Operation Smile will deliver provide 4,000 patients with cleft surgery and 6,200 patients with general plastic and reconstructive surgery. Additionally, we will deliver comprehensive cleft care to around 3,200 patients.

Our Partners

Operation Smile believes that anything is possible through the power of collaboration.

Our existing long-term partnership with the Ministry of Health has allowed us to deliver surgical and comprehensive care across the country.

We work with hospital partners at Mekelle University, Jimma University and St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College hospital to deliver surgical and comprehensive care.

We support training in these locations through COSECSA, CANECSA and WFSA.

Through our partnerships with the Ethiopian Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons and Oromia Regional Health Bureau, we develop research and innovation programs.

We deliver our speech therapy program in partnership with the Canadian NGO Transforming Faces.