This World Health Day, #SafeSurgeryMatters All Over the World

LinkedIn: David Barash

You’ve seen me talk about the GE Foundation’s commitment to combat what’s become one of the most significant, yet underestimated, public health crises of our time – safe surgery. When 5 billion people around the world lack access to safe surgical procedures that could save their lives, it is a problem of enormous magnitude. It’s one that needs our attention every day and on World Health Day in particular.

The GE Foundation launched and invested $25 million in the Safe Surgery 2020 initiative to empower cross-functional teams to “train the trainers” so they can teach local teams in developing countries how to provide greater access to effective and safe surgical care. Safe Surgery 2020 does this by engaging in-country partners to identify specific skills-training and equipment needs in vulnerable communities. For example, we partner with local ministries of health and engage directly with surgical teams to help launch scalable safe surgery training programs, such as those highlighted below, that will save lives.

The goal of Safe Surgery 2020 has been to improve access to safe surgery for 50 million more people by 2020. As we near the achievement of that commitment, we honor the many dedicated professionals who have made this goal a reality: ministries of health, academic institutions, nonprofits, companies, hospitals, surgical teams and more. Recently, we’ve had new successes to celebrate in key areas that will improve lives. A few examples:

Biomedical Equipment – The World Health Organization estimates as much as 70 percent of medical equipment is partially or completely out of service in sub-Saharan Africa. This equipment, from ventilators to ultrasounds, is sometimes all a facility might have to perform certain life-saving procedures. To address this gap, we recently worked with Assist International to send students to biomedical equipment technician (BMET) training at facilities in Tanzania and Rwanda. These replicable trainings will enable techs to fix and maintain medical equipment at local hospitals to improve the delivery of medical care.

Oxygen – Just this week, we commissioned the Amhara Regional Oxygen Centre in Ethiopia, which is the culmination of concerted efforts by many organizations over the past three years. To support the Centre, two oxygen plants have been developed to provide a consistent supply of medical oxygen to 40 different hospitals in the region, which has a population of 8 million. Medical oxygen is often the difference between life and death for children with pneumonia, yet it is unavailable in one out of every three health facilities in East Africa.

Anesthesia & Maternal Health – We were thrilled to recently launch the inaugural anesthesia simulation training at Ayder Hospital in Ethiopia with ImPACT Africa, the Vanderbilt Global Anesthesia Department and Kijabe Hospital. The work being done to upskill OB-GYN doctors, midwives, maternity nurses and anesthetists through the Mobile Obstetric Simulation Training will help minimize the number of deaths—now at nearly 300,000 women each year—from treatable pregnancy complications.

To us and the team behind Safe Surgery 2020, #SafeSurgeryMatters. In this clip, Rahel, a mother in Mehoni, Ethiopia, shares how an emergency C-section saved her life and that of her baby. She was cared for at Mehoni Primary Hospital, a facility where Safe Surgery 2020 has provided the surgical team with leadership development and mentorship programs and has co-created solutions to overcome infrastructure issues at the hospital.

From Ethiopia to places closer to home, we’d love to hear why #SafeSurgeryMatters to you. Along the way, we’ll be celebrating the organizations and individuals surfacing new problems, tackling complex challenges and training the next generation of surgical teams to give everyone equal access to the care they need and deserve.