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KIU Western Campus DVC Co-Chairs World Health Summit Surgery Workshop

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KIU, Western Campus – The Deputy Vice-Chancellor (DVC) for Kampala International University, Western Campus, Prof. Patrick Kyamanywa has today, June 29 co-chaired a workshop about global surgery at the World Health Summit (WHS) currently taking place at the Commonwealth Resort in Muyonyo, Kampala.

The theme of the workshop was “Global Surgery: Drawing from successful experiences to advance universal access to safe surgical care”, and was aimed at bringing together key stakeholders and policymakers in healthcare in Africa to discuss and propose solutions to the existing challenges in achieving Universal Health Coverage for safe surgical care, according to the workshop brief.

According to WHS, the impact of surgical diseases has hampered the attainment of Social Development Goal (SDG) 3, which is, “to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.

“Surgical diseases often affect individuals in their productive youth, resulting in permanent disability and greatest Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) with associated impoverishing expenditure of treatment,” WHS says.

It also points out that the ratio of surgeons to patients is very low, something that leads to delayed surgery of some patients, forcing them to stay with some correctible surgical conditions until adulthood.

“Most surgical diseases require a one-time intervention to restore function for the affected individuals and hence the required treatment costs when compared to other diseases are relatively low,” reads part of the workshop brief.

“Despite these alarming statistics, surgical care has remained the number one neglected service in LMICs (Low and Middle-Income Countries),” it adds.

The session was also chaired by Prof. Francis Omaswa, the Executive Director of the African Center for Global Health and Social Transformation (ACHEST).

Speakers included Dr. Charles Olaro, the Director of Health Services in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Jane Fualal, the Vice-President of the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA) and Dr. Doruk Ozgediz, the Director of the Center of Global Surgery and Health Equity, among others.

Image: World Health Summit