A Young Mother is Filled with Hope Knowing Her Baby is Receiving the Care He Needs

For any mother, the moment of handing her baby over to a roomful of strangers in a hospital operating room would be an emotional one. But for 22-year-old Nancy, giving her 6-month-old son Samuel, who was born with a cleft condition, to an Operation Smile volunteer nurse as he heads into surgery, it was one filled with optimism. “I am happy because he is going to have a new smile from the surgery they are going to perform,” she says. “I hope it turns out very well.”

Nancy and Samuel traveled seven hours to access care the Petén Regional Hospital, an Operation Smile partner hospital. At every step of the process, from a pre-surgery health screening to meeting with an anesthesiologist who explained how Samuel would be prepped for the procedure, Nancy felt compassion and reassurance from the whole health care team.  

“When he goes with me, we will find his vein. We won’t prick him until he is sleeping. He will get all the medication through his vein,” explains volunteer Andra Churunel, M.Sc.,  anesthesiologist. “When he wakes up, we will send for you.” 

The volunteers at Operation Smile are a crucial part of Operation 100, the organization’s bold commitment to bring care closer to patients’ homes, so moms and their babies like Nancy and Samuel don’t have to travel so far for the care they deserve. Petén Regional Hospital is one example of a district hospital where local health workers can train and expand access to care, strengthening local health care systems in their communities. For anesthesiologist Carolina Franco, M.D., the reward comes from seeing the mothers’ faces when they are reunited with their babies after surgery. “I’ve been doing this for many years,” she says. “The mothers look at them as if they had just been born, as if they were meeting them for the first time.”  

Working hand-in-hand with local communities is the key ingredient to building a lasting impact. But as Beatriz Vidal, Operation Smile’s regional director for Guatemala, Ecuador and Panama, says, “the most important thing for us to be able to give a mother is hope. I think we are making an immeasurable difference.” 

For Nancy, the hours of waiting for Samuel’s surgery to be completed didn’t phase her in the slightest. “I didn’t even feel the hours go by, and then they called me back. They handed him to me,” she says, her own smile beaming across her face. “I didn’t even recognize him. He looked different — more beautiful. I thank the Operation Smile for giving my son a new smile.”