Sri Lanka
About our work
Nearly 400 children are born with clubfoot in Sri Lanka every year (a country of 22 million people). Despite the prevalence of the condition, many families are not aware of clubfoot treatment options or lack access to care. In partnership with Humanity & Inclusion (HI) and the College of Community Physicians of Sri Lanka (CCPSL), MiracleFeet supports clubfoot treatment and trains orthopedic doctors and other health care providers involved in treatment. HI will focus more on operational aspects of the program where as CCPSL will focus on advocacy and integration of clubfoot services working closely with the Ministry of Health.
The collaboration between HI and MiracleFeet began in 2017 at the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children in Colombo. Since then, the partnership has expanded to three clinics and has treated more than 2,000 children.
CCPSL has been actively involved in the evaluation of the Electronic Health Information System (HIS) in Sri Lanka (2018), universal healthcare efforts (2019), NCD screening (2019), and best practices in Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Adolescent Health (RMNCAH, 2018). The organization has strong expertise in leading national and international projects, as well as generating reports and policy documents. CCPSL members also have experience conducting mixed-method research and evaluating programs or projects.
Integration
In cooperation with our partner, College of Community Physicians of Sri Lanka (CCPSL), and following advocating to integration clubfoot services into the public health system, the Ministry of Health (MoH) of Sri Lanka has agreed to support early detection, community-based surveillance, and referral mechanisms for clubfoot cases while addressing treatment dropouts. Specifically, the initiative involves orienting Public Health Midwives (PHMs) to enhance community-level identification and referral of clubfoot cases to facilitate early intervention and to locate and re-engage dropout cases to ensure continuity of care and improved outcomes. By empowering PHMs, the initiative will serve as a first step in creating a robust community-level surveillance and referral system, ensuring better outcomes for affected children while supporting the overall goal of integrating clubfoot services into the national health framework.
