Our Mission

The World Surgical Foundation provides medical care in developing countries around the world where healthcare is not available or affordable to the population. The Foundation is funded by donations from individuals, businesses, and other non-profit humanitarian organizations. The doctors, nurses, and volunteers pay their own way, and the WSF uses funding to send medical supplies to our destination countries/hospitals. For the Honduras trip, the WSF spent $10,000 in shipping to send an ocean container with one infant/child ventilator for San Pedro Sula and an electrocautery machine, one dozen crutches, two portable procedure lights, and two anesthesia machines for the Hospital in Olanchito. The refurbished ventilator that was purchased for San Pedro Sula cost $6,000. Brand new ventilators are around $50,000. We also shipped vaporizers for the anesthesia machines for $500 each. The anesthesia machines and procedure lights were donated by Pinnacle Health Systems, and the electrocautery equipment was donated by Valley Labs.

Another cost that the World Surgical Foundation funding covered was the approximately $18.50 charge to admit a patient in the Olanchito Hospital for about 80 of the patients that could not afford to pay the fees. Some people had already paid around $8 for bus fare to come from La Ceiba, a city about 3 hours from Olanchito, and didn’t expect to pay the hospital fees because they had heard that the WSF Brigade was here doing surgery for free. Unfortunately, we only got to see less than half of the people who paid to come see us. It is heartbreaking to see, but we don’t have the time or resources to help everyone.

One piece of equipment that we don’t travel without is a portable anesthesia machine that works with an oxygen tank to drive the gasses without electricity. We are currently working with two in Honduras, and it has allowed us to perform a second surgery in a room that already contains one table and anesthesia machine. These machines cost about $5,000, and we only have two currently. With donations, we would like to purchase more so that we can operate anywhere from the mountains to the jungle.