Patients
Mobile Speech Therapy Clinic Connects Communities in Ghana to Vital Care
Step inside the bus that brings invaluable care and expertise to young patients close to home.
In Ghana, over 100,000 children experience speech and language challenges, yet many live far from the nearest hospital or clinic. Speech therapy remains an underdeveloped field, and with just 40 trained speech therapists serving a population of 32 million, access to care is extremely limited.
For four years, Operation Smile has been breaking barriers to care with its Speech on Wheels program. In the Eastern region of Ghana, a bus pulls up outside the Gyankama primary school. Wrapped in photos of smiling children, the bus represents the impact of Operation Smile’s efforts to expand access to safe, high-quality care for communities in need.
It’s immediately clear this is not just any bus: On board is a team of speech therapists bringing vital support to patients in some of Ghana’s most remote regions. The team of specialists hits the road in a specially adapted bus to bring vital support to more people who need it.
Bringing Care Closer
Because nearly half of the children born with a cleft condition will need speech therapy, this mobile speech therapy clinic is a vital addition to Operation Smile’s work in Ghana, where many patients are scattered in remote areas without the means to travel long distances to their nearest clinic or hospital.
Even though palate surgery significantly reduces the need for speech therapy, many children will need ongoing support with their speech even after their palate is repaired. Mobile clinics like this one help ensure patients don’t miss the extra support they need to be able to communicate clearly and confidently, something most of us take for granted.

In Ghana, the speech program has already helped more than 1,500 patients who may otherwise have missed out on this important follow-up care.
“The mobile speech clinic is breaking barriers to care. It couldn’t have come at a better time,” explains Operation Smile Ghana’s speech program coordinator, Kwaku Bekoe Obuobisah. “With support from our speech therapists and then the Ghana Health Service, we are able to partner with these hospitals and provide care to these patients in remote areas.the program provides complementary care to our patients. Also, it goes beyond speech to even include their communication disorders, the way they behave and even hearing aspects as well.”
Obuobisah is proud that the mobile clinic not only benefits Operation Smile patients; it brings care and support to any patients struggling with speech or communication issues that the team meets along the way.
The mobile clinic is the first of its kind in Ghana, but it is not a standalone service. It’s part of the wider speech program in Ghana which has already established two speech therapy clinics in the country.
“Before the speech program, we did not have speech and language therapy clinics within the Ghana Health Service,” Obuobisah explains. “Thankfully, we’ve now been able to establish two of those clinics, one in the eastern region and one in the northern region. Currently together, over 1,500 patients have benefited from the establishment of these clinics. That is an achievement. ”
The service bridges the gap between the two existing clinics and expands the reach of the team into more remote areas. It’s also big enough inside to have two compartments, with a flexible layout so that it can be changed to suit different needs.

Challenging Superstition
The speech therapy program is also working to reduce the harmful stigma that surrounds speech and communication disorders in many communities. The program has already trained 50 volunteers to challenge misconceptions and superstition about children with cleft or speech problems.
Obuobisah explains: “In some of our communities, for example, if a child is two years old and that child is not talking, there is a misconception about what exactly is wrong with this child. Some people think the child came into this world with a bad omen. Now, these volunteers are out there explaining to caregivers that it is not a bad omen, but that there is help.”
As the speech and language therapy program continues to change lives, it’s also changing the landscape of care in Ghaha. “There is a change, and the solution to that is speech and language therapy,” Obuobisah shares. “Although it is new in Ghana, it is an area that is growing, it is developing.”