Operation Smile Joins USNS Comfort as Part of Four-Month Latin American Deployment

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’s hospital ship, USNS Comfort, during its summer 2009 humanitarian assistance deployment – Continuing Promise. The USNS Comfort mission will provide humanitarian services to nine sites in seven countries in Latin America and the Caribbean during a 120-day deployment. These services will include basic surgeries, nursing educational opportunities, public health interventions, veterinary services, and basic infrastructure support and construction.  USNS Comfort will work with Operation Smile along with other joint, inter-agency, international and non-governmental organization partners.

The Operation Smile international team will be working side-by-side with the Navy in Corinto, Nicaragua in early July.  The team, which includes plastic surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, a dentist and speech therapist, will provide free physical examinations at Hospital España to identify surgical patients who will then be transported aboard the ship.  Operation Smile medical volunteers will work side-by-side with Navy personnel and conduct four days of surgery.  Approximately 80 children suffering with cleft lips and cleft palates will receive free reconstructive surgery as a result of the medical mission.  Post-operative checks for the patients will take place the following week.

Operation Smile Medical Officer Dr. Ruben Ayala said, “Operation Smile is honored to participate in the Continuing Promise 2009 deployment with USNS Comfort.  Following our successful participation with USNS Comfort in 2007 for a multi-site partnership in Latin America, and its sister ship USNS Mercy in Southeast Asia in 2006 and 2008 to provide hundreds of children with life-changing surgery, we along with our medical volunteers are   excited to join with the Comfort’s crew in bringing new smiles to children in Nicaragua in July.”

USNS Comfort will depart from Norfolk, Va., on April 1.  During its four-month deployment, the ship is scheduled to make port calls in Antigua, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Panama and Nicaragua.

This partnership with the USNS Comfort marks the fifth time Operation Smile has been invited to participate in a Navy humanitarian assistance mission.  In the summer of 2006, Operation

Smile volunteers deployed with the USNS Mercy to Chittagong, Bangladesh and provided 140 free physical examinations and reconstructive surgery to 54 patients.  Then in the summer of 2007, Operation Smile joined the USNS Comfort during its humanitarian assistance deployment.  Operation Smile volunteers and the ship’s medical team worked together during missions in Nicaragua, Peru and Colombia, providing more than 100 children with free reconstructive surgery.  From May-August 2008, Operation Smile joined the USNS Mercy during its summer 2008 humanitarian civic assistance deployment and worked together in the Philippines, Vietnam, Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea and treated nearly 300 patients suffering with cleft lips and cleft palates.  And Operation Smile worked with Navy personnel aboard USS Kearsarge in August to provide surgery to 29 children in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua. 

About Operation Smile (www.operationsmile.org)
Our Mission: Operation Smile mobilizes a world of generous hearts to heal children’s smiles and transform lives across the globe.  Founded in 1982, Operation Smile, headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia, is a worldwide children’s medical charity whose network of global volunteers are dedicated to helping improve the health and lives of children and young adults.  Since its founding, Operation Smile volunteers have treated more than 130,000 children born with cleft lips, cleft palates and other facial deformities and the organization has a presence in 51 countries.  In addition to contributing free medical treatment, Operation Smile trains local medical professionals in its partner countries and leaves behind crucial equipment to lay the groundwork for long-term self-sufficiency. 

Media Notes:
The SOUTHCOM web site, www.southcom.mil, will provide regulars updates on the Comfort deployment.  More information on the Comfort can be found on the Comfort website, www.comfort.navy.mil.

Media interested in covering Comfort’s mission should contact LT Matt Gill at 757-444-1588 or matthew.gill@navy.mil.  To receive images, additional information, or to request an interview with an Operation Smile spokesperson, please contact Lisa Jones at ljones@operationsmile.org or 757-321-3252.