OPERATION SMILE TO EXPAND CHARITY WORK IN PHL THROUGH PPP

Operation Smile Philippines is adopting the public-private partnership approach to expand its capabilities to treat more Filipino cleft children, the organization’s president and executive director,  Roberto Manzano, said today in a press statement.

Mr. Manzano issued the statement at Dusit Thani Manila during a press briefing on the month-long medical mission that Operation Smile volunteers from 37 countries are mounting in nine cities across the country to mark the global celebration of the organization’s 30^th anniversary.

Operation Smile founders Dr. William and Kathleen Magee flew to Manila from the U.S. to personally lead the mission and the celebration.  The couple founded Operation Smile in 1982 following a mission in Naga City where they saw the gravity of the cleft problem.

“If there’s any lesson we’ve learned during the past 30 years, it’s that we have to work closely together.  The oral cleft problem is so huge that no single entity, private or public, can address it alone.  We need to pool our resources together,” Mr. Manzano stressed.

Operation Smile has offered to share its three decades of experience in medical missions to the Department of Health and, as an initial step, will turn over its Global Standards of Care to the country’s health officials.

The Global Standards of Care, which Operation Smile has painstakingly developed at a huge investment over the years, set forth stringent rules in the conduct of cleft surgery to ensure that indigent patients anywhere in the world receive only the best and safest care available.

The standards cover the 14 critical areas in performing surgeries in a mission setting, from pre-qualifying surgery candidates to making sure the appropriate equipment and facilities are available to forming the right medical team with the proper credentials to documenting the treatments.  

Using this template, the DOH can formulate policies and regulations governing similar medical missions to protect the welfare of the intended beneficiaries. 

The Philippine Regulatory Commission, a DOH-attached agency, has cited Operation Smile as a model in the conduct of medical missions because of the systems it had put in place to standardize procedures.

The planned turnover of the Global Standards of Care signal Operation Smile’s intention to forge closer ties not only with public health officials but also with local government units, private groups and local and international non-governmental organizations in dealing with the oral cleft problem in the country.

Oral cleft is among the top 12 congenital defects in the country. One in every 500 or an estimated 4,000 Filipinos are born every year with a harelip, a cleft palate or both.

Unknown to many, the deformity contributes to the high infant mortality rate in developing countries.  Data gathered by Operation Smile showed that 10 percent of cleft children or 400 die before reaching their first birthday and 12 percent or 480 do not live past the age of five.

“We want to reach these unfortunate children so we can treat them at an early age. Unfortunately, the Philippines has no cleft registry so it’s difficult to locate them,” Mr. Manzano said.

The situation might be remedied soon however as Smart Communications and the Ateneo Java Wireless Center have developed an application for Operation Smile Philippines that would enable social workers to document cleft births and send the records to a central database using a mobile phone.

Mr. Manzano said Operation Smile Philippines has tapped SPECTRUM, a non-governmental organization in Saranggano Province, to pilot test the application.  If the test proves successful, the OpSmile mobile app would soon be made available to Android phones.

Operation Smile Philippines has also inked a tie-up with Philippine Airlines (PAL) to fly volunteers to mission sites around the country at non-revenue rate. 

Owing to the archipelagic nature of the Philippines, transport cost represents a huge expense for the organization, Mr. Manzano said, adding that the cost savings from the PAL tie-up will allow Operation Smile to either add more medical missions or to build more cleft care centers.

“Either way, we increase the number of cleft children we can treat,” Mr. Manzano said.

A cleft care center is a permanent facility where Operation Smile volunteers can perform reconstructive surgeries or provide consultation services or post-operative care to cleft patients year-round. Operation Smile Philippines has so far set up two.

The first, the Mindanao Cleft Center housed at the Brokenshire Hospital in Davao City, was put up in partnership with a private non-profit organization.  The second, the Manila Cleft Center at the Sta. Ana Hospital in Manila, was established in partnership with the city government.

“This is the kind of public-private partnership that we envision Operation Smile to engage in here in the Philippines in the years ahead,“ Mr. Manzano said.  

“We can equip the DOH’s social workers with the Smart app phones and train them. Once we know where the cleft children are concentrated, we can fly our volunteers on PAL to those places or, if the numbers warrant it, even put up a cleft center there with the help of the local government unit or another private group,” Mr. Manzano said.

Operation Smile is ready to partner with any reputable organizations, be they public or private, local or international, to make cleft care readily available to those who can least afford it, he added.