A Banner Year for Global Surgery: Now How to Make it Make a Difference on the Ground

Excerpt

People who have been working to assure surgical care to everyone in the world (including that majority of the world’s people who live in poverty in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)) have felt ignored for years by their governments, by international organizations, by the field of global public health and even by many surgical organizations. This has gradually begun to change. This year in particular has seen three notable events/publications related to global surgery: (1) the publication of Disease Control Priorities 3rd Edition (DCP3) Volume 1 Essential Surgery [1]; (2) the publication of the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery [2]; and (3) the adoption of World Health Assembly (WHA) resolution 68.15—“Strengthening emergency and essential surgical care and anaesthesia as a component of universal health coverage” [3]. This editorial will summarize these three events and discuss how the surgical community can put them to use in promoting real, on-the-ground improvements in surgical care globally. …