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Millions have died worldwide due to lack of access to surgical care, anesthesia

Nearly 5 billion people, primarily those in low- to middle-income countries, do not have access to safe surgical and anesthesia care, resulting in 16.9 million potentially preventable deaths in 2010, according to a recently published article in The Lancet Global Health.

“In the absence of surgical care, common, easily treatable illnesses become fatal. The global community cannot continue to ignore this problem — millions of people are already dying unnecessarily, and the need for equitable and affordable access to surgical services is projected to increase in the coming decades, as many of the worst affected countries dace rising rates of cancer, cardiovascular disease and road accidents,” Andy Leather, MS, of Kings Centre for Global Health at King’s College, London, said in a press release.

Developed by 25 experts across 110 countries and six continents, the Lancet’s Commission showed that 9 out of 10 people in low- to middle-income countries cannot access basic surgical care, and that 143 million additional life-saving surgeries are needed in these countries. The Commission also notes that tremendous financial burdens are placed on 33 million people who do receive surgical and anesthesia care.

Improving access to safe surgical and anesthesia care is affordable, according to the Commission, but will take both physical and human resources to achieve. By 2030, a minimum operative volume of 5,000 per 100,000 surgeries is attainable, if low- to middle-income countries increase the number of surgical services, with a $420 billion investment. It is estimated that if surgical scale-up is not achieved, nearly $12.3 trillion will be lost in economic productivity between 2015 and 2030.

“Although the scale-up costs are large, the costs of inaction are higher, and will accumulate progressively with delay,” John Meara, MD, professor, global surgery at Harvard Medical School, said in a press release.

The Commission urged that surgical care should be an essential part of national health care, and set out recommendations for how funds can be allocated for resources, how to improve access to care and policy models for surgical care plans.

“Surgical conditions — whether cancers, injuries, congenital anomalies, childbirth complications, or infectious disease manifestations — are ubiquitous, growing and marginalizing to those who are afflicted by them. The good news is that we believe it is possible to turn this fire situation around within the next two decades — but only if the international community wakes up to the enormous scale of the problem, and commits to the provision of better global surgical and anesthesia care wherever it is needed,” Meara said in the press release. – by Casey Hower

Disclosures: Meara reports no relevant financial disclosures. Please see the full study for a list of all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.