Since 1999, Operation Smile has delivered clinical care to over 7,440 patients affected by cleft conditions in Peru.
But there is more to do.
During Fiscal Year July 2025-June 2026, Operation Smile will invest $776,400 to provide over 430 patients with surgery and train nearly 200 health workers.
Over the course of the next five years, Operation Smile will perform surgeries for approximately 4,740 patients with cleft conditions.
Cleft Care Programs
Operation Smile will increase the volume of surgeries and provide surgical care to approximately 430 patients in Peru. An expansion of comprehensive care will ensure that our patients have access to high-quality multidisciplinary services before and after cleft surgery. We will deliver consultations in oral health (~700 patients), speech therapy (~900 patients), nutrition (830 patients) and psychosocial care (~140 patients). To improve speech, patients participate in Coro de Sonrisas in Lima, a choir of patients. The children will attend choir practice at the Operation Smile Care Center and will rehearse various songs that also serve as Speech Therapy exercises.
Education Programs
Operation Smile will provide training and education for nearly 200 medical professionals in Peru, building a stronger local workforce equipped to deliver safe, high-quality cleft care. In collaboration with the American Heart Association, providers will receive Basic Life Support training, strengthening emergency response capacity. Visiting professorships and fellowships will bring global expertise directly to Peru, expanding knowledge transfer and mentorship.
Operation 100, our bold strategy to bring essential surgical care closer to patients’ homes, will impact Peru this year as we equip a cleft operative team at Hospital Nacional Daniel Alcides in Carrion with advanced skills, essential equipment and enhanced health infrastructure.
THE NEED
Limited access to surgery. Despite making strides in the expansion of universal health coverage, Peru suffers from surgical backlogs. The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery proposed that, to meet populations’ needs, countries should achieve 5,000 surgical procedures per 100,000 people. In Peru, medical providers perform just 3,005 procedures per 100,000 people. The geography of Peru brings unique barriers. People living in the Andes and jungle regions have limited access to quality care and often need to travel long distances to receive surgery.
Financial burden. According to Operation Smile’s survey, 42% of patients arriving at Operation Smile programs in Peru live below the international poverty line. In Lima, Peru’s capital, 63% of patients arriving at Operation Smile programs said they would be unable to receive surgery if it weren’t for Operation Smile. Out-of-pocket expenses often prevent people from accessing the surgical care that they need. Eight percent of the population is at risk of impoverishing expenditure for surgical care, while nine percent faces catastrophic expenditure in case of surgical care.
Shortfall of health workers. Peru has 43 specialist surgical workers per 100,000 people, which falls short of the average number of 71 specialist surgical workers in high-income countries. Rural areas, especially regions where indigenous populations live, have fewer resources and fewer health providers compared to urban areas.
Barriers to education. Without surgery, children affected by cleft conditions face limitations in school attendance and performance. In Peru, 63% of children living with a cleft condition do not go to school due to appearance. 67% of caretakers do not work in order to take care of children born with cleft conditions.
BRINGING CARE CLOSER TO HOME
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 strengthen health system capacity by harnessing the talent and resources concentrated in larger cities, the hubs, to train providers in under-resourced areas, the spokes, where access to care is most limited.
In Peru, Operation Smile provides surgical and comprehensive cleft care at our hub in Lima, Instituto Nacional de Salud del Niño de San Borja.
Our spokes are based in Lima (Hospital Dos de Mayoand Hospital Nacional Daniel Alcides) and Arequipa (Hospital Regional Honorio Delgado).
We partner with Hospital Sergio Bernales in Lima and Hospital Regional José Cayetano in Piura.
Operation Smile provides year-round, comprehensive care at our Care Center in Lima.
FIVE-YEAR VISION
Over the next five years, Operation Smile will build a coordinated cleft care network in Peru, decentralizing the surgical system to provide accessible, sustainable and multidisciplinary treatment nationwide. In the next five years, Operation Smile will perform surgeries for approximately 4,740 patients with cleft conditions.
Operation 100, our bold strategy to bring essential surgical care closer to patients’ homes, will impact Peru as we equip cleft operative teams at Hospital Regional Honorio Delgado in Arequipa and Hospital Sergio Bernales in Lima with advanced skills, essential equipment and enhanced health care infrastructure over the next five years.
