Because Healthcare is a Human Right.
The Beginning
Aloha Medical Mission (AMM) is a secular, nonprofit 501(c)(3) volunteer organization based in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. AMM provides free health care to medically underserved people in Hawai‘i and around the world. The organization was founded in 1983 by Drs. Ramon Sy and Ernesto Espaldon under its parent organization, the Philippine Medical Association. That first year, a team of physicians and nurses traveled to a small town in the Philippines and performed free cleft-lip surgery on children whose families were too poor to afford the operation.
Expanding Our Aloha
The scope of our missions has expanded to include multiple surgical specialties and dentistry. We work closely with our host-nation partners to ensure that we are fulfilling the needs of the local communities in a respectful and sustainable manner. The most common specialty care services that AMM provides includes Gynecology, General Surgery, Dentistry, Head and Neck Surgery, Plastics and Reconstructive Surgery, Orthopedic Surgery, and Urology.
Based in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, AMM still focuses primarily on missions in Asia and the Pacific Rim. Our reach has extended over the decades and our missions have grown in number and country diversity. In the past 5 years, AMM has conducted missions in Cambodia, Honduras, Guatemala, Nepal, Myanmar, and the Philippines.
Growing Our Aloha
Beginning in 1993, fellowships in ophthalmology provided by a Honolulu-based ophthalmologist helped train 26 Filipino physicians, all of whom returned to the Philippines to practice in their local communities.
Sharing Our Aloha
A joint project in 2007 with the Polynesian Voyaging Society led to medical clinics held on Yap, Ponap (Pohnpei), Satowan, and Chuuk. We have collaborated with local agencies and hospitals in sending cargo containers of medical supplies to hospitals in the Philippines and Micronesia.
Planting the Seed of Aloha
In 2000, the Aloha Social Services Bangladesh medical clinic was started in Bangladesh. It has developed into a multiservice facility providing medical care, early education for children too poor to attend school, vocational and literacy training for parents, advocacy for women’s rights, and micro-loans to needy families.
What We’ve Done
15
Number of countries
129
Missions Completed
23,623
Number of Dental Procedures
12,610
Number of Surgeries
166,261
Total Number of Patients Cared For
Helping Here in Hawaii
In the early 1990s, AMM began programs to bring free medical care to the homeless, the uninsured and other medical underserved people living in the state of Hawai‘i. Collaborating with the Waikīkī Health Center, we sent caravans of doctors and nurses to beach camps. For two years beginning in 1995, we staffed a clinic to treat the homeless at The Institute for Human Services (IHS).
In 2002, AMM established the only free dental clinic in Hawai‘i, which was focused on treating the 30 percent of the state population that lacks dental insurance. This clinic served thousands of patients until 2025, when the dental clinic became part of Project Vision, Hawai’i. The clinic’s mission continues as they continue to provide outstanding dental care to underserved people throughout Hawai’i
In 2002, we established the only free medical clinic in Hawai‘i. This clinic served new immigrants, the homeless, and the uninsured. In early 2010, we closed the clinic, transferring our patients to the Kalihi-Pālama Health Center, which was then better able to provide a full range of patient services.
Our project, Kōkua me ka Laulima: Help With Many Hands, was initiated in August 2010. AMM developed the collaboration of two local hospitals (Queen’s Medical and Castle Medical Centers), private surgeons and anesthesiologists, and two community health centers on O‘ahu (Kalihi-Pālama and Kōkua Kalihi Valley health centers) to provide free outpatient general surgery services to the uninsured poor. We hope to expand the breadth of surgical services and the number of participating hospitals, physicians, and community clinics. By April 2011, two patients were operated on under the auspices of this program.