Making surgery accessible, safe, and affordable

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Meet Operation Smile

Every three minutes, a child is born with a cleft lip or cleft palate1, a defect that can be repaired for as little as USD 240 and in as few as 45 minutes2. Unfortunately, children born in resource-poor environments don't always have access to life-saving reconstructive cleft surgeries. Operation Smile, a UBS Optimus Foundation partner, is on a mission to change that..

The problem you're helping to address

Safe surgery is severely underfunded. Significant workforce capacity and service delivery challenges limit access and quality while weak management skills and adoption of standard protocols lead to inefficient facilities and poor outcomes.

Five billion people lack access to safe, affordable surgery.3

Close to 17 million lives are lost every year from conditions that require surgical care.4

30 percent of the global burden of disease can be alleviated with surgery. 5

Shortage of + one million surgical, anesthetic, and obstetric providers across 136 low and middle income countries.6

Fewer than 50 percent of hospitals in Africa have effective infection control processes.7

More than 1/3 of hospitals in Sub-Saharan Africa lack reliable sources of water and electricity. 8

Up to 70 percent of equipment in low-resource settings is out-of-use at any given time.9

Safe surgery is critical to achieving universal health coverage

Transforming surgery will improve outcomes in priority areas including maternal health, trauma, and non-communicable disease. Also, safe surgery is a key entry point to improving health care systems.

  • Maternal health

    100,000+ maternal deaths could be averted each year through access to safe C-sections.10

  • Neonatal health

    Access to C-sections reduces neonatal mortality by 30–50 percent.11

  • Trauma

    Access to adequate trauma care could save 2.6 million people each year who would otherwise die of injuries  in low-resource countries.12

  • Non-communicable disease

    Surgery is responsible for 65 percent of cancer cure and control.14

We can help you maximize your philanthropy in the area of safe surgery by focusing on four critical areas: workforce, infrastructure, equipment and supplies, and processes.

Strategic focus area

Method

Target output

Expand and upskill the surgical workforce

  • Support the development and delivery of competency-based training curricula and job aids
  • Introduce and replicate quality improvement methodologies
  • Scale up tele-mentoring and lowdose, high frequency (LDHF) content delivery approaches

  • # surgical, anesthetic, and obstetric specialists per 100,000 population
  • # operations performed per 100,000 population
  • Increased proportion of patients reporting satisfaction with surgical care received

Invest in essential infrastructure, equipment and supplies

  • Provide technical assistance to governments
  • Support activities to de-risk investment opportunities
  • Partner with the private sector to increase access to affordable tools and technologies

Increased % of population within two hours access to a facility that can perform caesarean delivery and laparotomy, and treat open fractures

Demonstrate replicable and scalable models to

expand access to surgical care

  • Invest in pilot programs with strong implementation designs and potential for scale
  • Document and disseminate evidence based models
  • Support replication of program components with evidence of impact

  • # pilots of new financing and delivery mechanisms such as development impact bonds (DIBs) and Public Private Partnerships (PPPs)
  • Increased volume and quality of evidence generated and disseminated

1 Operation Smile (2019). Our Vision. Retrieved from: https://www.operationsmile.org/our-vision. Last consulted: November 11, 2020.

2 Operation Smile (2019). Home. Retrieved from: https://www.operationsmile.org/. Last consulted: November 11, 2020.

3 The Lancet (2015). Global Surgery 2030: evidence and solutions for achieving health, welfare, and economic development. Retrieved from: https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2815%2960160-X. Last consulted: November 4, 2020.

4 The Lancet (2015). Global burden of surgical disease: an estimation from the provider perspective. Retrieved from: https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2214-109X%2814%2970384-5. Last consulted: November 4, 2020.

5 The Lancet (2015). Global Surgery 2030: evidence and solutions for achieving health, welfare, and economic development. Retrieved from: https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2815%2960160-X. Last consulted: November 4, 2020.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid

10 Thomas, Sarah & Meadows, Jonathan & Mcqueen, Kelly (2016). Access to Cesarean Section Will Reduce Maternal Mortality in Low-Income Countries: A Mathematical Model. World Journal of Surgery.

11 George Molina, MD, Micaela M Esquivel, MD, Tarsicio Uribe-Leitz, MD, Prof Stuart R Lipsitz, ScD, Tej Azad, BA, Neel Shah, MD et al. (2015). Avoidable maternal and neonatal deaths associated with improving access to caesarean delivery in countries with low caesarean delivery rates: an ecological modelling analysis. The Lancet. 385: 33.

12 Reynolds TA, Stewart B, Drewett I, Salerno S, Sawe HR, Toroyan T & Mock C. (2017). The Impact of Trauma Care Systems in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. Annu Rev Public Health. 20;38:507-532.

13 Anna J. Dare, Benjamin O. Anderson, Richard Sullivan, C. S. Pramesh, Cheng-Har Yip, Andre Ilbawi, Isaac F. Adewole, Rajendra A. Badwe, & Cindy L. Gauvreau (2015). Surgical Services for Cancer Care. Disease Control Priorities, 3;3:223-238.