Skip to main content
We are thrilled to announce our partnership with Beast Philanthropy!
Watch the Video

Patient Story Honduras

Oscar’s Journey to Surgery in Honduras: Part I

Patient Story Honduras

Oscar’s Journey to Surgery in Honduras: Part I

At 7 years old, Oscar didn’t speak – he would only communicate through motions, nods of his head and shy smiles.

His cleft palate has kept him from learning how to properly articulate words, and out of frustration of not being understood, Oscar quit trying to talk. Over time, Oscar’s cleft lip prevented him from going to school, from making friends and from feeling accepted in his own community.

“They call him ‘el bicho’,” his mother, Gloria said, which roughly translates to ‘weird one’ or ‘little beast.’

Several weeks before the Operation Smile medical mission in Tegucigalpa, a local newspaper, La Tribuna, published an article highlighting the problems thousands of Hondurans face with lack of food and healthcare. The article sought to gather support and resources for Gloria who had lost two children due to malnutrition. Eight family members, now six children and two parents, shared a hut made of mud and scattered wood. The newspaper article included photos of the family and their home – pictured in the middle was a smiling Oscar.

“I was reading the newspaper one morning, and I saw this boy with a cleft,” said Juan Zablah, an Operation Smile volunteer in Honduras. “I saw it and it really impacted me. I immediately called the Operation Smile office here and asked what we could do to help him.”

Juan contacted the reporter from the newspaper who put him in touch with community healthcare workers in the village where Oscar and his family live. The healthcare workers told the family there is an organization, Operation Smile, who can help their son.

In a few short weeks, church and community members gathered enough money so Oscar and Gloria could travel to the Operation Smile medical mission in Tegucigalpa for a chance at surgery that could change Oscar’s future.

Gloria and Oscar traveled by foot for two hours to get to a bus where it would take them another three hours to get to the Operation Smile medical mission site. Both had never seen anyone else with a cleft condition before arriving here.

Gloria has resigned herself to calling all her family’s misfortunes “fate,” but she hopes the opportunity at surgery will help change her whole family’s life.

“It pains me. My other children are gone. It pains that Oscar is like this. It hurts in my heart when they call him ‘el bicho’,” she said, trying to hold back tears in front of her son. “I hope surgery can change his life, starting with the way people treat him.”

This is part one in a two part series. Please click here to continue following Oscar’s journey.

MAKE A GIFT

It takes as little as $240 and as few as 45 minutes to provide life-changing surgery and a bright, beautiful new smile to a waiting child.