Smile Train Provides Life-changing Surgeries to over 18,600 Patients with Clefts in One Year

Rebecca Ejifoma

The world’s largest cleft organisation, Smile Train, through its sustainable partnership model, has experienced groundbreaking growth in Africa. It provided 100 per cent free life-changing cleft surgeries to more than 18,600 beneficiaries in the last financial year, 2023.

This figure, which reflects a 13 per cent growth over the previous year, comes amid Smile Train’s recent recognition at the 2023 Nigerian Healthcare Excellence Award (NHEA).

Globally, research shows one in 700 babies is born with clefts, a common birth difference which, without treatment, can make it difficult for babies, children, and adults to breathe, eat, speak, and thrive.

According to Smile Train, children who grow up with untreated clefts are often stigmatised and bullied, unable to socialise or go to school.

An independent study observed that each primary cleft surgery yielded up to $50,000 in economic benefit — cleft surgery costs approximately $250.

Owing to this study, Smile Train offers free cleft surgeries and comprehensive cleft care. It includes nutrition, speech therapy, orthodontics, and psychosocial support to enable patients to develop healthily.

According to Smile Train, more than 1,200 patients benefited from comprehensive cleft care interventions in the previous year.

Smile Train’s Vice-President and Regional Director for Africa, Nkeiruka Obi, attributed the transformative impact to strategic collaborations and investments in comprehensive cleft care, research and innovation.

“The positive impact on individuals with clefts we have experienced was borne out of concerted efforts of dedicated medical professionals and counsel of the Africa Medical Advisory Council (AMAC),” she emphasised.

Obi added that the intentional programmatic investments address the needs of the patients while empowering medical professionals to provide the highest standards of surgical and anaesthesia care within the local community.

She added: “If we are to achieve Universal Health Coverage truly, our focus must be on lifting the burden that people living in low-resource settings often face due to inequitable access to the much-needed timely safe surgery and anaesthesia care.

“We can progress in this journey through collaborations with government, corporate partners, and non-governmental organisations and institutions.”

While insisting that the causes of clefts are still unknown, the Vice President said it could be associated with environmental factors like genetics, certain medications and smoking.

Smile Train continues to dispel myths and misinformation surrounding the condition while partnering with local medical professionals.

Since 2002, Smile Train has developed local partnerships with more than 700 partner hospitals and over 300 medical partners in 42 African countries to provide free cleft treatment.

To date, Smile Train’s local medical partners have provided more than 170,000 life-changing cleft surgeries in the region.

Among the strategic investments in education and training include partnerships with Scottish
Charity KidsOR, the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA) and the West African College of Surgeons (WACS) provide scholarships in various categories.

Smile Train has enhanced the surgical workforce in Africa with 25 newly certified cleft specialist surgeons, 40 fellows in training and 11 anaesthesia fellows with the College of Anesthesiologists of East Central and Southern Africa (CANECSA) and Pediatric Anaesthesia Training in Africa (PATA).

In addition, 400 in-house workshops have enhanced the expertise of more than 1,000 cleft care providers, including in nursing, surgical instruments maintenance, orthodontists, and speech therapy.

Recently, Smile Train broke ground in Ghana for Africa’s first Cleft Leadership Centre to build the capacity of cleft professionals to dispense global standards of care at the local level.

The organisation empowers local medical professionals with training, funding, and resources to provide free cleft surgery and comprehensive cleft care to children globally.

Smile Train advances a sustainable solution and scalable global health model for cleft treatment, drastically improving children’s lives, including their ability to eat, breathe, speak, and ultimately thrive.