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Infrastructure Expansion for Children's Surgery: Models That are Working
Emmanuel A Ameh1, Marilyn W Butler2
1Division of Paediatric Surgery, Department of Surgery, National Hospital, Abuja, Nigeria.
Insights
Expanding pediatric surgical care in low- and middle-income countries is crucial for child survival and development. Partnerships, training, and advocacy are key to meeting global health goals for children's surgery.
Area of Science:
- Global Health
- Pediatric Surgery
- Health Systems Strengthening
Background:
- Children's surgical care is vital for averting mortality and long-term disability, with lifelong impacts on individuals, families, and communities.
- Significant gaps and limited capacity in pediatric surgical services exist in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
- Failure to scale up infrastructure risks missing World Health Assembly (WHA) resolution targets, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and Universal Health Care (UHC) by 2030.
Purpose of the Study:
- To highlight the critical need for expanding children's surgical care infrastructure in LMICs.
- To identify effective models for scaling up pediatric surgical services.
- To emphasize the importance of partnerships, capacity building, and advocacy in achieving universal access to surgical care for children.
Main Methods:
- The study reviews existing models for expanding surgical infrastructure, focusing on partnerships and capacity building.
- It emphasizes the role of training local healthcare professionals to ensure sustainable, long-term care and knowledge transfer.
- The analysis considers guidance from National Surgical, Obstetrics, and Anesthesia Plans and the Optimal Resources for Children's Surgery document.
Main Results:
- Partnership-based models with ongoing capacity building are most promising for expanding pediatric surgical infrastructure.
- Training local surgeons and healthcare professionals is essential for sustainable service delivery and future workforce development.
- Engaging the private sector can help address infrastructure and service gaps unmet by public funding.
Conclusions:
- Scaling up children's surgical care infrastructure is imperative to meet global health targets for child survival and well-being.
- Sustainable expansion requires integrated approaches including training, adherence to standards, private sector engagement, and robust advocacy for funding.
- Achieving universal health coverage for pediatric surgical needs necessitates dedicated funding and strategic planning at national and international levels.
Abstract:
Children's surgical care is cost-effective and can avert mortality and long-term disability in children, with ramifications throughout life not only for the patient, but for the extended family and community as well. Considering the current gaps and limited capacity for children's surgery in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), it is clear that without expanding and scaling up the infrastructure, World Health Assembly (WHA) resolution 68/15 targets and child-related targets of Sustainable Development Goals and Universal Health Care are unlikely to be met by 2030. The most promising models to expand infrastructure are those that include ongoing partnerships and capacity building by educating and training local surgeons and healthcare professionals who will not only provide care for children, but who will train future generations of surgical providers as well. Efforts to improve infrastructure necessarily include raising the standard of children's surgical care at all levels of the healthcare system, which will hopefully be guided by National Surgical, Obstetrics, and Anesthesia Plans and by the Optimal Resources for Children's Surgery document. The private sector can be effectively engaged to fill infrastructure and service gaps that cannot be met by government budgets. Ultimately, success of any infrastructure expansion initiative depends on strong advocacy to allocate ample funding for children's surgical care.