Operation Smile Joins USS Kearsarge for Continuing Promise 2008 to Bring Smiles to Children in Nicaragua and Colombia
Operation Smile, a worldwide children’s medical charity that provides free surgery to children in developing countries born with facial deformities, will join the United States Navy ship, USS Kearsarge (LHD 3), during its humanitarian assistance deployment. Continuing Promise 2008, a USSOUTHCOM directed operation, is an equal partnership mission designed to combine partner nation and U.S. relief capabilities to demonstrate the lasting bonds and shared interests among neighbors in the Caribbean, Central and South American regions. The mission brings together host nation medical personnel, partner nation military medical and construction personnel, and non-governmental organizations to provide medical, dental, construction and other services ashore and afloat.
 |
Operation Smile will be working side-by-side on USS Kearsarge in two countries: Nicaragua and Colombia. Approximately 100 children suffering with cleft lips and cleft palates will receive free reconstructive surgery as a result of these medical missions.
 |
Operation Smile Medical Officer Dr. Ruben Ayala said, “Operation Smile is honored to participate in the Continuing Promise 2008 deployment with USS Kearsarge, stationed in our hometown of Norfolk, Va. We have joined the Navy in 2006 during the Mercy mission to Bangladesh, worked with its sister ship, the USNS Comfort in 2007, for a multi-site partnership in Latin America, and this month are wrapping up missions conducted this summer with the Mercy in Southeast Asia. Operation Smile medical volunteers from Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, the United States and Venezuela are excited to join with the Kearsage and its crew in bringing new smiles to children in Nicaragua and Colombia in August and September.”
USS Kearsarge departed Norfolk, Va., on August 6. The first mission involving Operation Smile will take place in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, in mid August. Free medical evaluations will be conducted by Operation Smile medical volunteers at Nuevo Amanecer Hospital to identify surgical patients who will then be transported aboard the ship for surgery. Operation Smile medical volunteers and Navy personnel will complete four days of surgery. Post-operative checks for the patients a week after surgery will also take place at the hospital. Nicaragua became an Operation Smile partner country in 1993, and since then, medical volunteers have provided more than 2,000 with life-changing surgery during international and in-country local medical missions.
Kearsarge will move on to Santa Marta, Colombia, for the next medical mission involving Operation Smile in late August. Operation Smile medical volunteers from Colombia will work at Hospital Universitario Fernando Traconis to provide free physical examinations and surgery to children. Since 1988, Operation Smile has treated more than 5,400 children in Colombia through international medical missions, in-country local missions.
