Providing Surgical Services Should Be Global Public Health Priority:
When you think of public health efforts in developing countries, you probably think of childhood vaccinations, programs for clean water, malaria and TB eradication campaigns. Surgery is rarely considered as a tool for improving the health of the world's poorest people. Prompted by an article in their on-line journal suggesting that it should be, the editors of PLoS Medicine have added their voice to the discussion.
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It's food for thought. Without access to expert surgeons, I'd now be living with two different, utterly miserable chronic pain conditions instead of being healthy and active. My mother-in-law would have lost her ability to walk without pain before she turned 70, and one of my best friends would have been immobilized by a serious health condition in her thirties. Several other people close to me would have been permanently disabled at early ages by common injuries. And my mother would not be a tough and amazingly resilient 89-year-old now -- she'd probably have died of cancer in her sixties.
We take these things completely for granted if we're in a developed nation and have health insurance. Maybe more basic health infrastructure (like vaccines and clean water) is what saves more lives, but most of us can't even imagine what it would be like to permanently lose our mobility and livelihood because of a few bones broken in an accident. I definitely want to read the article now.