Honduras

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 Honduras, we deliver care at our hub, Hospital Marfa de Especialidas Pediatricas in Tegucigalpa and at our spokes at Hospital Juan Manuel Galvez in Gracias and Hospital de Occidente in Santa Rosa de Copan.

We provide surgical care at our hospital partners Hospital Leonardo Martinez in San Pedro Sula and Hospital San Felipe in Tegucigalpa.

Operation Smile provides comprehensive care at our Care Centers in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula.

Five-Year Vision

Over the next five years, Operation Smile will provide surgery to approximately 1,950 patients. We will deliver consultations to over 9,000 patients.

We will continue to provide education and training opportunities to medical providers, ensuring that our patients have access to the best possible care. In the next five years, Operation Smile will offer training opportunities to around 640 health workers across various specialties.

Operation Smile will establish an additional comprehensive care site in Santa Rosa de Copan to expand access to care.

Our Partners

Government Agencies:
Our partnership with the Ministry of Health allows us to carry out surgical programs at public hospitals in Honduras. COPECO, a government institution that coordinates relief efforts after natural disasters, provides Operation Smile with transportation, ambulances, furniture and supplies to help us carry out surgical programs. The mayor’s office of the El Pararso municipality provides free transportation for our patients, while the mayor’s office of the Central District provides Operation Smile with a general physician once a week.

NGOs:
CEPUDO, which works with communities in Honduras to overcome conditions of extreme poverty, donates supplies to Operation Smile’s surgical programs. Surgical NGO CAMO (Central American Outreach) helps Operation Smile raise awareness about cleft conditions in the communities we serve, refers patients to our programs and provides American Heart Association trainers for our volunteers. Teleton nonprofit assists Operation Smile in Santa Rosa de Copán, while Embajadores de Cristo, which provides health services to patients living in poverty, helps us carry out large-scale screenings for our surgical programs. Through our partnership with the Red Cross in Honduras, we carry out blood drives ahead of our surgical programs. We also currently receive support from Confederación Deportiva Autónoma de Honduras (Condepah) in Tegucigalpa and from the Gimnasio Olímpico in San Pedro Sula, which provides accommodations for our patients during surgical programs in different cities. We also work with Fundación Abrigo in San Pedro Sula, Casa Huésped del Hospital Juan Manuel Gálvez in Gracias, Lempira, Comité Pro-Ayuda del Hospital San Felipe in Tegucigalpa and Albergue Buen Samaritano in Santa Rosa de Copán.

Universities:
In Honduras, Operation Smile collaborates with top-­ranking universities, including the National Autonomous University of Honduras, the Central American Technological University and Universidad CatóIica de Honduras.