{"id":111802,"date":"2015-04-27T13:01:58","date_gmt":"2015-04-27T13:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=111802"},"modified":"2015-04-27T13:01:58","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T13:01:58","slug":"five-billion-people-have-no-access-to-safe-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=111802","title":{"rendered":"Five billion people ‘have no access to safe surgery’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two-thirds of the world’s population have no access to safe and affordable surgery, according to a new study in The Lancet – more than double the number in previous estimates.<\/p>\n

It means millions of people are dying from treatable conditions such as appendicitis and obstructed labour.<\/p>\n

Most live in low and middle-income countries.<\/p>\n

The study suggests that 93% of people in sub-Saharan Africa cannot obtain basic surgical care.<\/p>\n

Previous estimates have only looked at whether surgery was available.<\/p>\n

But this research has also considered whether people can travel to facilities within two hours, whether the procedure will be safe, and whether patients can actually afford the treatment.<\/p>\n

One of the study’s authors, Andy Leather, director of the King’s Centre for Global Health, said the situation was outrageous.<\/p>\n

“People are dying and living with disabilities that could be avoided if they had good surgical treatment,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Also, more and more people are being pushed into poverty trying to access surgical care.”<\/p>\n

The study suggests a quarter of people who have an operation cannot in fact afford it.<\/p>\n

Call for investment<\/p>\n

Twenty-five experts spent a year and a half gathering evidence and testimony, from healthcare workers and patients, from more than 100 different countries as part of this report.<\/p>\n

They are now calling for a greater focus on, and investment in, surgical care.<\/p>\n

\"scrubbing
Surgeons scrub up before performing surgery – but more investment is needed<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They say a third of all deaths in 2010 (16.9 million) were from conditions which were treatable with surgery.<\/p>\n

That was more than the number of deaths from HIV\/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined.<\/p>\n

The authors suggest the cost to the global economy of doing nothing will be more than $12 trillion between now and 2030.<\/p>\n

They are calling for a $420bn global investment.<\/p>\n

These are enormous figures and – as is nearly always the case – the greatest need is in the poorest countries.<\/p>\n

\"line\"<\/figure>\n
Numbers of trained surgical specialists per 100,000 people<\/figure>\n
    \n
  • UK: 35<\/li>\n
  • US: 36<\/li>\n
  • Brazil 35<\/li>\n
  • Japan 17<\/li>\n
  • South Africa: 7<\/li>\n
  • Bangladesh 1.7<\/li>\n
  • Sierra Leone (before Ebola): 0.1<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Source: The Lancet study<\/p>\n

    \"line\"<\/figure>\n
    ‘Surgery not just for urban elite’<\/strong><\/figure>\n

    A key challenge is training enough surgeons, anaesthetists and obstetricians.<\/p>\n

    In higher income countries such as the UK, there are around 35 surgical specialists per 100,000 people, whereas in Bangladesh there are 1.7 per 100,000 population.<\/p>\n

    Lead author John Meara Kletjian, professor in global surgery at Harvard Medical School, said: “Although the scale-up costs are large, the costs of inaction are higher, and will accumulate progressively with delay.”<\/p>\n

    “There is a pervasive misconception that the costs of providing safe and accessible surgery put it beyond the reach of any but the richest countries,” he added.<\/p>\n

    Experts in the field say surgery is a basic and crucial health need that has been largely ignored by the global health community, with tragic consequences.<\/p>\n

    “The agenda has been so much focused on individual diseases and, because surgical care is spread across so many diseases, it’s been missed off,” said Andy Leather said.<\/p>\n

    “There’s a myth there isn’t a burden of surgical disease, that it’s too costly and it’s just for the urban elite.”<\/p>\n

    ‘People have given up’<\/p>\n

    London-based consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, Shane Duffy, has recently returned from a surgical training camp in central Uganda.<\/p>\n

    There he has been teaching local doctors how to carry out very specialised ‘fistula repair surgery’.<\/p>\n

    This is for women who have had obstructed labours.<\/p>\n

    Most sufferers lose their babies during child birth and are left with a damaged bladder, or bowels, which can leave them incontinent and rejected by their families.<\/p>\n

    “Unfortunately a lot of people have given up on the hospitals because they can’t find surgeons there,” said Dr Duffy.<\/p>\n

    “People are living in the community with debilitating conditions and they just can’t find the skilled people to help them.”<\/p>\n

    \"line\"<\/figure>\n
    Facts on global surgery<\/figure>\n
      \n
    • 313 million operations are carried out worldwide each year.<\/li>\n
    • Just one in 20 operations occur in the poorest countries, where over a third of the world’s population lives.<\/li>\n
    • There is a global shortfall of at least 143 million surgical procedures every year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Source: The Lancet\/BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Two-thirds of the world’s population have no access to safe and affordable surgery, according to a new study in The Lancet – more than double the number in previous estimates. It means millions of people are dying from treatable conditions such as appendicitis and obstructed labour. Most live in low and middle-income countries. The study […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":111803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[15,38],"class_list":["post-111802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-chinese","tag-palaver-newspaper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/111803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}