David A. Spiegel

TL;DR: It is reported that there are 234 million major surgical procedures worldwide each year, one for every 25 people, which is more than twice the number of yearly births, and seven times the 33·2 million people infected with HIV.

TL;DR: To improve global priority for surgery, proponents will need to create an effective governance structure that facilitates achievement of collective goals, generate consensus on solutions, and find an effective public positioning of the issue that attracts political support.

TL;DR: Lobbying for a World Health Assembly resolution on emergency and essential surgical care, and developing “structured collaborations” between WHO and various stakeholders are potential ways to ensure that the global surgery agenda continues to move forward.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the burden of communicable and vaccine-preventable diseases in low-income and middle-income countries is increasing and has been neglected and that both morbidity and mortality from surgically preventable (elective hernia repair) or treatable (strangled hernia) disorders can be greatly decreased through simple surgical interventions.

TL;DR: The World Health Organization (WHO) Global Initiative for Emergency and Essential Surgical Care (GIEESC) is a global forum whose goal is to promote collaboration among a diverse group of stake-holders to strengthen the delivery of essential surgical services at the primary referral level in LMICs.