New partnership launched to improve access to safe, high-quality, and affordable paediatric surgical care for children living with clefts in low-resource settings.
The WFSA – Smile Train partnership marks a significant step forward in tackling persistent global inequalities in access to paediatric anaesthesia and surgery, especially for children born with clefts.
“The WFSA–Smile Train partnership is a timely, strategic, and deeply needed response to the global inequities in paediatric surgical care. Together, through our investments in capacity building for cleft care, we are committed to ensuring that safety, quality, and sustainability are at the core of paediatric anaesthesia and surgery in every corner of the world,” said Erin Stieber, Chief Program Strategy Officer, Smile Train.
Focusing on Safety, Training and Sustainable Impact
At the heart of this collaboration is a shared commitment to patient safety and workforce development. The initiative will focus on:
- Closing the Capnography Gap: Access to capnometry, a vital patient monitoring technology, remains limited in many low-resource health systems. WFSA and Smile Train will catalyse on-going efforts to advocate jointly for broader access to essential monitoring tools that underpin safe anaesthesia for paediatric patients.
- Training and Professional Development: The partnership will support:
- Two WFSA-Smile Train Paediatric Anaesthesia Fellows to complete fellowships in India and Latin America, with training prioritised for those treating children, including those with clefts.
- Five WFSA-Smile Train Scholars from Africa, Asia, and Latin America to attend the 2026 World Congress of Anaesthesiologists (WCA) in Marrakech, fostering global learning and professional growth.
- Safer Anaesthesia From Education (SAFE): Smile Train will support the delivery of WFSA’s SAFE Paediatrics and SAFE Paediatrics Cleft courses across its operational regions, ensuring frontline anaesthesia providers receive high-quality, practical training tailored to paediatric cleft surgery.
Advocacy for Global Change
Recognising the importance of systems-level change, WFSA and Smile Train will seek to engage with policymakers and leaders at national and regional levels to highlight the vital role of safe anaesthesia and surgery in achieving universal health coverage and reducing preventable harm to surgical patients, particularly children. The advocacy will leverage WFSA’s position as a non-state actor in official relations with the World Health Organization (WHO) and Smile Train’s leadership in cleft care, as well as its network of more than 1,000 treatment partners across over 80 countries.
A Shared Vision
This partnership brings together WFSA’s global network of more than 500,000 anaesthesiologists and Smile Train’s extensive experience in sustainable cleft care, having supported over two million surgeries since 1999.
“By uniting our strengths in education, advocacy, and clinical capacity building, we’re working toward a future where every child—regardless of where they are born—has access to safe, life-changing cleft surgery,” said Professor Daniela Filipescu, WFSA President.
