A new study has found that surgery patients are twice as likely to die in Africa compared to the global average. A lack of resources was to blame for the high mortality rate.
Only 12% of the world’s 2.1-million-strong specialist surgical work force, which includes surgeons, anesthesiologists, and obstetricians, practice in African or South East Asian countries. And about two out of every three people in the world do not have access to safe, affordable and timeous surgery.
“The resources information is just terrifying,” says professor Bruce Biccard, lead author on the African study, which was published on Jan. 3 in medical journal The Lancet. “There are about 20 to 50 times less human resources than what we would consider a minimum for post-surgery globally. That’s the scary part.”
A new study has found that surgery patients are twice as likely to die in Africa compared to the global average. A lack of resources was to blame for the high mortality rate.
Only 12% of the world’s 2.1-million-strong specialist surgical work force, which includes surgeons, anesthesiologists, and obstetricians, practice in African or South East Asian countries. And about two out of every three people in the world do not have access to safe, affordable and timeous surgery.
“The resources information is just terrifying,” says professor Bruce Biccard, lead author on the African study, which was published on Jan. 3 in medical journal The Lancet. “There are about 20 to 50 times less human resources than what we would consider a minimum for post-surgery globally. That’s the scary part.”
According to the study, on average 212 operations were performed per 100,000 people. This is 20 times lower than the benchmark 5,000 operations per 100,000 people.
Biccard said that the study was a “call to action”: “It helps us focus on areas where we can make a difference.”
“There’s no way we can train the number of physicians to get to that global state minimum,” he said. Health systems needed to consider other ways of providing care, such as though non-physician healthcare providers.
“There is a lot of opportunity for nursing involvement in post-operative care and the identification of patient risk. Essentially there isn’t enough surveillance of patients in post-operative care,” he said.
The next step in the research was a trial, planned for 2019, investigating what could be done to improve post-operative care. “We’ve got an group of investigators across Africa, about 1,000 people at the moment,” Biccard said. In the trial, “we want to see if we can improve outcomes, and then we are one step closer”.