Global access to surgical care: moving forward.

Abstract

2—focuses on the benefi ts of surgical care, including its potential to substantially decrease mortality while being exceptionally cost-eff ective; the issues of access to life-saving surgery, perioperative safety, and the inclusion of surgery in universal health coverage are also specifi cally addressed. The recognition of surgery as an essential component of global public health stems from a growing body of academic literature detailing the disparities in access to surgical care. Population-based surveys have been instrumental in quantifying the unmet need for surgical care, and hospital-based studies have shed light on defi ciencies in human and material resources required for basic surgical care. Global estimates of surgical care and need, arising from complex statistical models, have also been essential in quantifying the problem and have been especially eff ective in gaining the attention of stakeholders and decision-makers from outside the surgical sphere. In 2008, Weiser and colleagues 3