CEBU, Philippines — Operation Smile’s all-female team of volunteers, who are cleft care professionals from 12 countries, have celebrated the close of the six-day educational and medical mission they have conducted in Cebu City recently.
As part of the objective to launch the “Women in Medicine” in Asia, the multinational team has conducted a one-day forum on women empowerment in the health profession followed by five days of free surgeries on 59 children with cleft lip and cleft palate at the Cebu City Medical Center.
Operation Smile Co-Founder and President Kathleen Magee flew in from the U.S. to lead the launch.
Women in Medicine is a new global initiative that seeks to encourage women to join the health care profession and empower them to take leadership roles in their respective fields.
It is also being piloted in Africa and in South America.
The program was created in response to the call of the World Health Organization (WHO) for women to drive the transformational change in global health care.
Magee earlier said that “Women in Medicine” is central to their 10-year goal of increasing access to quality care for one million patients around the world, and to help build global health infrastructure.
Magee said the program seeks to educate women in resource-poor countries on advanced medical practices, empower them to become leaders in global medicine, expand opportunities for female health care workers in underserved communities, and elevate the quality of cleft care.
Magee added that there are five million patients in need of cleft care in the countries they work in, and five billion people who lack access to safe surgery across the world.
“We can’t address this need without more women in the health care arena,” Magee said.
Women comprise 70 percent of health professionals but occupy only 25 percent of the leadership positions.
The WHO had said the world needs 18 million more health professionals to achieve universal health coverage.
In the Philippines, the gap in health professionals is 290,000. — GAN (FREEMAN)