Tanzania

Expanding Access to Care

To ensure that every child has access to care close to home, we equip the providers within our patients’ communities with skills and resources to deliver high-quality care. We build the needed capacity by harnessing the talent and resources that exist within the country, usually in the bigger cities, the hubs, to train providers in under-resourced areas, the spokes, where most patients lack access to care.​​​

In Tanzania, our hubs at Catholic University of Health and Allied Sciences (CUHAS) in Mwanza and Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) in Dar-es-salaam provide year-round surgical care for our patients. ​​

Spoke hospitals currently include Iringa Regional Referral Hospital and Mtwara Southern Zone Referral Hospital. In the future, Songea Regional Referral Hospital (Ruvuma Region), Katavi Regional Referral Hospital and Singida Regional Referral Hospital will also serve as spoke hospitals.

Five-Year Vision

Over the next five years, Operation Smile Tanzania aims to fully institutionalize comprehensive cleft care within national referral and zonal hospitals; strengthen multidisciplinary teams to deliver year-round services locally; expand geographically to additional underserved regions; deepen collaboration with government to align with national surgical, obstetric and anesthesia priorities; and transition toward a sustainable, Tanzanian-led model of integrated perioperative care.

A central pillar of Operation Smile Tanzania is developing local surgical ecosystems rather than short-term mission-based care. Key investments include:

• Month-long international externships for Tanzanian plastic surgeons to increase exposure to complex and mixed cases.
• Seven visiting professorships, bringing international specialists to Tanzania to expand access to services previously unavailable locally.
• Multidisciplinary training across anesthesia, nursing, pediatrics, biomedical engineering, psychosocial care and nutrition.
• Development of long-term training pathways for health professionals to strengthen comprehensive cleft and perioperative care nationwide.

Our strategy focuses on building durable systems, strengthening local expertise and ensuring equitable access to high-quality surgical care for children and families across Tanzania.

Our Partners

Operation Smile’s work is locally-led and globally supported. Operation Smile partners with Muhimbili National Hospital, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, CUHAS / Bugando Medical Centre, Iringa Regional Referral Hospital, Mtwara Southern Zone Referral Hospital, Songea Regional Referral Hospital and Katavi Regional Referral Hospital. We also work with the government of Tanzania through the Ministry of Health and the President’s and Prime Minister’s offices.