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Strengthening Health Systems through upscaling Surgical Care

Tuesday 23 May 2023, 06:00pm - 08:30pm

The central theme of the event will focus on the urgent need for financing to enable and accelerate implementation of frontline impact.

The event will also announce the official launch of GSF’s catalytic fund – a new innovative funding mechanism designed to support frontline implementation activities for the scale up of surgical care system capacities.

• Conditions requiring the care of a surgical care team represent 30% of the entire global burden of disease; and surgically avertable deaths account for nearly 17 million deaths per year, with injury alone accounting for nearly 5 million deaths per year. Nearly all people affected by injury require access to surgical care services;

• It is recognized that 90% of the world’s poor do not have access to safe and affordable surgical care services, and this results in significant death and disability, with the subsequent economic consequences on communities;

• It is now well established that robust surgical care systems serve as one of the key foundational components of national health systems’ ability to respond effectively to their populations health care needs; and that these systems provide a rapid response mechanism for emergency events, disasters and pandemics;

• It is also well recognized that surgical care services are very cost-effective, but despite this and alarmingly, the lack of investment in surgical care services results in severely compromised outcomes, thereby limiting efficiencies and increasing cost in the entire health system;

• In order to achieve our goals in scaling surgical care systems to meet the current needs, innovative solutions and technologies are required to accelerate and strengthen existing capacity building initiatives;

• In 2022, the GSF side event at WHA75 convened high-level leaders from member states, United Nations, academia, civil society, and industry to highlight the urgent need for sustainable financing for surgical care systems as a pathway to health system strengthening and Universal Health Coverage (UHC);