Potentially Avertable Child Mortality Associated with Surgical Workforce Scale-up in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Global Study

Achieving Surgical, Obstetric, Trauma, and Anesthesia (SOTA) care for all in South Asia

South Asia is a demographically crucial, economically aspiring, and socio-culturally diverse region in the world. The region contributes to a large burden of surgically-treatable disease conditions. A large number of people in South Asia cannot access safe and affordable surgical, obstetric, trauma, and anesthesia (SOTA) care when in need. Yet, attention to the region in Global Surgery and Global Health is limited. Here, we assess the status of SOTA care in South Asia. We summarize the evidence on SOTA care indicators and planning. Region-wide, as well as country-specific challenges are highlighted. We also discuss potential directions-initiatives and innovations-toward addressing these challenges. Local partnerships, sustained research and advocacy efforts, and politics can be aligned with evidence-based policymaking and health planning to achieve equitable SOTA care access in the South Asian region under the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

Modeling the global impact of reducing out-of-pocket costs for children's surgical care

Over 1.7 billion children lack access to surgical care, mostly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), with substantial risks of catastrophic health expenditures (CHE) and impoverishment. Increasing interest in reducing out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditures as a tool to reduce the rate of poverty is growing. However, the impact of reducing OOP expenditures on CHE remains poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to estimate the global impact of reducing OOP expenditures for pediatric surgical care on the risk of CHE within and between countries. Our goal was to estimate the impact of reducing OOP expenditures for surgical care in children for 149 countries by modeling the risk of CHE under various scale-up scenarios using publicly available World Bank data. Scenarios included reducing OOP expenditures from baseline levels to paying 70%, 50%, 30%, and 10% of OOP expenditures. We also compared the impact of these reductions across income quintiles (poorest, poor, middle, rich, richest) and differences by country income level (low-income, lower-middle-income, upper-middle-income, and high-income countries).Reducing OOP expenditures benefited people from all countries and income quintiles, although the benefits were not equal. The risk of CHE due to a surgical procedure for children was highest in low-income countries. An unexpected observation was that upper-middle income countries were at higher risk for CHE than LMICs. The most vulnerable regions were Africa and Latin America. Across all countries, the poorest quintile had the greatest risk for CHE. Increasing interest in financial protection programs to reduce OOP expenditures is growing in many areas of global health. Reducing OOP expenditures benefited people from all countries and income quintiles, although the benefits were not equal across countries, wealth groups, or even by wealth groups within countries. Understanding these complexities is critical to develop appropriate policies to minimize the risks of poverty.

Providing paediatric surgery in low-resource countries

Successful health systems comprise good outcomes, accessibility and availability. Surgery is the service that cuts across many treatment scenarios, yet in low- and middle-income countries 90% of people cannot access it. Estimates using most recent population data suggest that 1.75 billion children lack access to surgical care. Additionally, 30% of the global burden of disease is treatable with surgery, yet in LMICs as much as 87% of the surgical need remains unmet. Paediatric surgical services are not at the level they need to be, highlighting an increasing surgical burden on children’s health globally with a human cost of morbidity and mortality. Achieving Universal Health Coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals will fail if surgical systems are not strengthened in low resource settings. In 2018, global health charity Kids Operating Room was founded with a goal of ensuring every child has access to the surgery they need. The charity has a four-pillar approach to its work: provision of infrastructure and equipment, paediatric surgical workforce training, database development and research capacity strengthening, and advocating on behalf of children denied access to safe surgery. To ensure that paediatric surgical interventions produce real impact on service delivery, contextual understanding and needs assessment are key. The building of paediatric surgical capacity should align to countries’ priorities and wishes. Investing in local health workforce is essential to delivering quality services, supporting resilient health systems and provides integrated, people-centred health services. A competent surgical information system gives the local surgical workforce the tools needed to action evidence-driven decisions. Strengthening surgical services in a manner aligned to the WHO’s fundamental health system building blocks, allows for sustainable and long-lasting change. Confronting bottlenecks that exist in surgical services and establishing multi-faceted development, will allow global, national and local surgical targets to be met.

Delays in care for hydrocephalus and spina bifida at a tertiary hospital in Somaliland

Background

Childhood neurosurgical conditions such as hydrocephalus and spina bifida represent a significant burden of death and disability worldwide, particularly in low and middle-income countries. However, there are limited data on the disease prevalence and delays in care for pediatric neurosurgical conditions in very low-resource settings. This study aims to characterize the delays in access to care for pediatric neurosurgical conditions in Somaliland.

Methods

We performed a retrospective review of all children with congenital hydrocephalus and spina bifida admitted to the Edna University Hospital (EAUH) in Somaliland between 2011 and 2018. Patient demographics were analyzed with descriptive statistics and χ2 test statistics. We defined delays in care for each condition based on standard care in high-income settings. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression were performed to evaluate predictors of delay in care. Statistical significance was set at p<0.05.

Results

A total of 344 children were admitted to EAUH with neurosurgical conditions from 2011 to 2018. The most common condition was congenital hydrocephalus (62%). Delays in care were found for 90% of patients and were associated with the type of diagnosis and region. The longest delay among children with spina bifida was 60 months, while the longest delay for children with congenital hydrocephalus was 36 months. Children with congenital hydrocephalus or spina bifida traveling from foreign countries had the highest waiting time to receive care, with a median delay of 8 months (IQR: 5-11 months) and 4 months (IQR: 3-7 months), respectively.

Conclusion

We found significant delays in care for children with neurosurgical conditions in Somaliland. This country has an urgent need to scale up its surgical infrastructure, workforce, and referral pathways to address the needs of children with hydrocephalus and spina bifida.

Modeling the Scale-up of Surgical Services for Children with Surgically Treatable Congenital Conditions in Somaliland

BACKGROUND

Congenital conditions comprise a significant portion of the global burden of surgical conditions in children. In Somaliland, over 250,000 children do not receive required surgical care annually, although the estimated costs and benefits of scale-up of children's surgical services to address this disease burden is not known.

METHODS

We developed a Markov model using a decision tree template to project the costs and benefits of scale-up of surgical care for children across Somaliland. We used a proxy set of congenital anomalies across Somaliland to estimate scale-up costs using three different scale-up rates. The cost-effectiveness ratio and net societal monetary benefit were estimated using these models, supported by disability weights in existing literature.

RESULTS

Overall, we found that scale-up of surgical services at an aggressive rate (22.5%) over a 10-year time horizon is cost effective. Although the scale-up of surgical care for most conditions in the proxy set was cost effective, scale-up of hydrocephalus and spina bifida are not as cost effective as other conditions.

CONCLUSIONS

Our analysis concludes that it is cost effective to scale-up surgical services for congenital anomalies for children in Somaliland.

Defining Surgical Workforce Density Targets to Meet Child and Neonatal Mortality Rate Targets in the Age of the Sustainable Development Goals: A Global Cross-Sectional Study

OBJECTIVES

To reduce preventable deaths of newborns and children, the United Nations set a target rate per 1000 live births of 12 for neonatal mortality (NMR) and 25 for under-5 mortality (U5MR). The purpose of this paper is to define the minimum surgical workforce needed to meet these targets and evaluate the relative impact of increasing surgeon, anesthesia, and obstetrician (SAO) density on reducing child mortality.

METHODS

We conducted a cross-sectional study of 192 countries to define the association between surgical workforce density and U5MR as well as NMR using unadjusted and adjusted B-spline regression, adjusting for common non-surgical causes of childhood mortality. We used these models to estimate the minimum surgical workforce to meet the sustainable development goals (SDGs) for U5MR and NMR and marginal effects plots to determine over which range of SAO densities the largest impact is seen as countries scale-up SAO workforce.

RESULTS

We found that increased SAO density is associated with decreased U5MR and NMR (P < 0.05), adjusting for common non-surgical causes of child mortality. A minimum SAO density of 10 providers per 100,000 population (95% CI: 7-13) is associated with an U5MR of < 25 per 1000 live births. A minimum SAO density of 12 (95% CI: 9-20) is associated with an NMR of < 12 per 1000 live births. The maximum decrease in U5MR, on the basis of our adjusted B-spline model, occurs from 0 to 20 SAO per 100,000 population. The maximum decrease in NMR based on our adjusted B-spline model occurs up from 0 to 18 SAO, with additional decrease seen up to 80 SAO.

CONCLUSIONS

Scale-up of the surgical workforce to 12 SAO per 100,000 population may help health systems meet the SDG goals for childhood mortality rates. Increases in up to 80 SAO/100,000 continue to offer mortality benefit for neonates and would help to achieve the SDGs for neonatal mortality reduction.