Despite the unprecedented challenges the COVID-19 pandemic brought to our medical programs and care delivery, we’ve refused to stand aside in the face of this adversity.  

Volunteers and staff working in care centers throughout Latin America found an opportunity to come together to make sure that we kept our promise of caring for patients and their families amid lockdowns and country restrictions.

For patients born with cleft lip and cleft palate, speech therapy before and after surgery is an essential component of comprehensive cleft care.

Most of this ongoing work was done in person with patients at centers, but with the impact of the pandemic hitting countries worldwide, providing this care suddenly became impossible.

Working closely with her fellow regional directors, Operation Smile Regional Director Lizet Campos created the concept of the program called “HablemOS,” a play on words meaning “let’s talk” in Spanish with the capitalized “OS” at the end of the word symbolizing Operation Smile.

Cleft conditions can make eating extremely difficult, so speech therapists oftentimes conduct consultations soon after a child is born, providing families with advice on how to properly feed their child.

Speech therapists also provide patients with palate-strengthening exercises before surgery that help improve the procedure’s outcome. As a child grows and begins to speak, their ongoing care helps patients be able to speak more clearly.

In collaboration with our medical oversight team, speech council, program manager Mauricio Rojas of Mexico and program coordinator Maria Cristina Galindez of Venezuela, Lizet and her team implemented HablemOS in mid-August of this year.

With the support of Operation Smile Sweden and generosity of the Swedish Postcode Lottery, Lizet and her team have a fully funded program that they hope will show patients and their families that Operation Smile remains committed to them despite the current global challenges.

“So far, the program is proving to be a resounding success,” Lizet said. “To date, our teams in Latin America have delivered speech consultations to more than 3,200 patients. There’s also an in-person component, as 629 of the consultations were given at our care centers in Managua, Nicaragua; Asunción, Paraguay; Bogota, Colombia; and Caracas, Venezuela, though this continues to be conducted on a much more limited basis than the virtual therapy sessions.”

Volunteers and staff feel inspired by the deepening of the organization’s investment in speech therapy, which is critical to helping our patients live dignified and fulfilling lives.

The HablemOS team is honored to lead the way in developing a program that has the potential to be replicated and implemented everywhere that Operation Smile works.  

“Just imagine, in these sessions, through songs and stories, we can make our little ones exercise their speech abilities and keep them from finding it tedious,” said volunteer speech pathologist Milagros Rojas. “Instead, these sessions turn into play sessions.”

Knowing that many patients’ families had access to either internet-connected smartphones or computers, speech therapists were contacting families and resuming or beginning virtual consultations within weeks for hundreds of patients while the doors of the centers remained closed to the public.

If families lacked internet access, therapies were delivered over the telephone as well.

“There’s a lack of certified speech therapists throughout the Latin America region and in many other low- and middle-income countries,” Lizet said. “So we knew it would be critical to offer training and education opportunities to speech therapy providers so that more – and more qualified – therapists can deliver care to more patients.”

Working together with the Mexican speech and language therapy nonprofit Hablarte E Integrate, the training and education portion of the program has enrolled 61 speech therapists from 13 Latin American countries.

“Although we’re professionals, we can always grow in knowledge,” said Operation Smile Panama volunteer speech therapist Alina Navarro. “I’m delighted to be acquiring a new perspective. In terms of mentoring, it’s been useful to discuss the cases together with other professionals.”

The HablemOS program team feels driven to keep delivering much-needed speech therapy care to patients as the world continues to cope with the effects of COVID-19.

“I want to give thanks to those who made this opportunity possible,” Milagros said. “COVID was not a limitation, because anything is possible when things are done with humanity and infinite love.”

Help us to continue keeping our promise amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Your support today means we can help patients through these uncertain times and provide them with the care and surgery they deserve when it's safe to resume our work.

Our promise of improving health and dignity during the COVID-19 pandemic endures. We're helping front-line health workers stay safe, nourished and empowered to better serve their patients by providing life-saving supplies and equipment, as well as remote training to bolster their response. We’re also providing nutritional assistance, hygiene kits and virtual health services to support people and their health needs so they can thrive.