Here's Hopin'

The Importance of Global Surgery in Health Care

By Halley Christine Langford

Surgery, as a means of prevention in the field of public health is a rather neglected resource. The current trend in global health has been heavily geared toward the prevention and treatment of communicable diseases, and the use of vaccinations and medications. While these methods have been highly effective there are still millions needlessly dying and suffering that could easily be helped through the use of a simple surgical procedure.

One of the reasons surgery has been ignored as a method of treatment is due to its multiple components and costliness. Because of this there is a common misperception that surgery is a luxury rather than a necessity in developing countries. However, the paradigm that surgery be reserved for the rich and the insured is one that needs to be challenged. In order to provide surgical services to those who need it most (generally not the rich or the insured), treatment of surgical diseases should be need based rather than dependent on the ability to pay for services. Similar to the way communicable diseases such as AIDS and malaria are treated.

Every year over one million children are left without a mother. More than 80 percent of these maternal deaths are caused by sepsis, unsafe abortion, obstructed labor, and hemorrhage. Many of these deaths were and are avoidable through the use of surgical procedures. Children who have lost their mother are ten times more likely to die prematurely than those who have a mother (United Nations, 2010). Investments in maternal health have a direct effect on women and an indirect effect on child survival. Surgery to stop a postpartum hemorrhage not only saves the woman, but her family as well. Additionally, effective treatment of congenital defects, vehicle and agricultural accidents, cardiac disease, bone fractures and even blindness are equally important for the further development of global surgery as a form of intervention.

Working closely with the physicians in the otolaryngology department has provided me the opportunity to see the effects of surgery firsthand. I have witnessed the restoration of hearing and voice loss, faces that have been damaged by skin cancer rebuilt, brain tumors removed and years of life given back. I have personally experienced the grief stricken faces of people as they enter our clinics for the first time and the increase in quality of life that occurs as skilled surgeons work to restore them. In short, I have seen the miracle that surgery is and the important role it plays in health care.