Global Surgery team visit the World Health Assembly

The University of Birmingham and The Lancet recently hosted a side event at the World Health Assembly in May 2024, bringing together clinicians and senior policy makers from around the world. The meeting focused on the role of surgery in health system strengthening.

Professor Chris Whitty is Chief Medical Officer for England opened the meeting, which discussed the benefits of prioritising surgery in the global health agenda and how this would improve health system resilience and effectiveness, improve health outcomes, and increase equitable access to healthcare.

The University of Birmingham leads the National Health and Social Care Research (NIHR) Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery (GSU), which is transforming the lives of surgical patients across the world. The GSU’s international network offers trials that are unprecedented in speed, global in scale, and tailored to the hugely varied settings found in lower- and middle-income countries. This vast network brings together more than 1000 collaborators and over 100 hospitals around the world with the shared aim of making surgery safer, increasing capacity and preventing post-operative complications.

The network centres around 7 research hubs: India, Nigeria, Ghana. Benin Rwanda, South Africa and Mexico. The meeting was attended by Hub Directors from across the network, and Health Ministers from both Nigeria and Benin. The meeting offered the opportunity for these diverse contributors to talk about two key issues relevant across the world.

First, antimicrobial resistance and the contribution surgical communities can make to developing stronger pathways between community, primary, and secondary care and improved antibiotic stewardship through education, early diagnosis, and early treatment.

Second, how to address the carbon footprint of operating theatres, which will become especially important as surgical services are scaled up around the world. This would involve considering reusable drapes, caps and gowns, exploring use of anaesthetic gases and could even expand to consider sustainable energy supplies to hospitals. The energy element is especially important, not only environmentally but also because regular power cuts in the Global South make surgery can more complex and more dangerous for patients.

The GSU's unique role in creating the world’s largest surgical research network means that not only is context relevant evidence is able to influence the development of surgical services that work in different countries, but learnings from across the world, shared at meetings such as the event in Geneva, have the potential to shape health systems of the future.