Estimates of Treatable Deaths Within the First 20 Years of Life from Scaling Up Surgical Care at First-Level Hospitals in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Multicenter audit of operating room staff compliance with the surgical safety checklist: a cross-sectional study from a low- and middle-income country

BACKGROUND

Unsafe surgical practices are a preventable cause of morbidity and mortality. The WHO published its surgical safety checklist (SSC) to help reduce surgical errors and complications and improve patient outcomes. This study aims to audit compliance with the WHO's SSC and explore attitudes toward its implementation in hospitals within a low- and middle-income country.

METHODS

This was a two-part, cross-sectional study in which a retrospective desk review was used to audit compliance with SSC use, and a questionnaire was used to explore attitudes toward the SSC. The data were collected between September and November 2021 from two major governmental and nongovernmental hospitals. Surgeons, anesthesiologists, and surgical nurses were invited to complete a self-administered questionnaire that measured attitudes across five domains via a 5-point Likert scale.

RESULTS

The final sample consisted of 340 patients whose records were retrieved from one governmental hospital (n=170) and one nongovernmental hospital (n=170). Among those patients, 93 (27.4%) underwent general surgery, 49 (14.4%) underwent orthopedic surgery, and 45 (13.2%) underwent pediatric surgery. The SSCs were fully completed for 27.9% of the patients, partially completed for 43.2% of the patients, and left blank for 28.8% of the patients. Compliance with the use of the SSC was significantly associated with age (p=0.002), sex (p=0.022), type of surgery (p<0.001), classification of surgery (p=0.006) and hospital sector (p<0.001). None of the patients at the governmental hospital had a completely filled the SSC, whereas none of those at the nongovernmental hospital had a blank SSC. Among the final sample of 80 operating room staff members included in the study that explored their attitudes, 41.3%, 40.0%, and 18.8% were surgeons, surgical nurses, and anesthesiologists, respectively. The participants demonstrated positive attitudes toward the SSC across all the attitude domains. The majority said that lack of time (56.3%), staff assertiveness (55.0%), and training (53.8%) were the most important barriers to implementing the SSC. The hospital sector was significantly associated with higher scores across all domains.

CONCLUSIONS

While the majority of operating room staff used the SSC, only a minority filled the list completely. The attitudes toward using the WHO's SSC trended positively, which encourages the official implementation of the SSC at the national level. Addressing the identified barriers may enhance the quality of implementation by providing educational sessions. Future reaudits are recommended to enhance the adaptability of the SSC.

Adaptation and validation of the Children's Surgical Assessment Tool for Rwandan district hospitals

BACKGROUND/AIMS

Paediatric surgical care is a critical component of child health and basic universal health coverage and therefore should be included in comprehensive evaluations of surgical capacity. This study adapted and validated the Children's Surgical Assessment Tool (CSAT), a tool developed for district and tertiary hospitals in Nigeria to evaluate hospital infrastructure, workforce, service delivery, financing, and training capacity for paediatric surgery, for use in district hospitals in Rwanda.

METHODS

We used a three-round modified Delphi process to adapt the CSAT to the Rwandan context. An expert panel of surgeons, anaesthesiologists, paediatricians, and health systems strengthening experts were invited to participate based on their experience with paediatric surgical or anaesthetic care at district hospitals or with health systems strengthening in the Rwandan context. We used the Content Validity Index to validate the final tool.

RESULTS

The adapted tool had a final score of 0.84 on the Content Validity Index, indicating a high level of agreement among the expert panel. The final tool comprised 171 items across five domains: facility characteristics, service delivery, workforce, financing, and training/research.

CONCLUSION

The adapted CSAT is appropriate for use in district hospitals in Rwanda to evaluate the capacity for paediatric surgery. This study provides a framework for adapting and validating a comprehensive paediatric surgical assessment tool to local contexts in LMICs and used in similar settings in sub-Saharan Africa.

Global Initiative for Children's Surgery (GICS) Pediatric Trauma Care Initiative: A Call for a Comprehensive Approach to a Global Problem

INTRODUCTION

Trauma is a major problem which has a significant health, social, and economic impact. Particularly, pediatric trauma carries substantial mortality and morbidity. This is a great concern for subspecialized general and pediatric surgeons. Therefore, a global initiative for pediatric trauma care is warranted and should be initiated.

AIM

The international association "Global Initiative for Children's Surgery" (GICS) would like to propose and organize a children's trauma care (CTC) initiative. This initiative should comprehensively address pediatric trauma management globally, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The initiative seeks to achieve a structured cooperation and collaboration with respective sister organizations and local stakeholders.

METHODS

The initiative will address these relevant aspects: 1. first aid; 2. prehospital primary trauma care; 3. hospital primary trauma care; 4. advanced care (ATLS); 5. diagnostic facilities; 6. operation room (OR) equipment; 7. specialized surgical services; 8. rehabilitation; 9. registry, research, and auditing; 10. specialization in pediatric trauma; 11. capacity and confidence building in pediatric trauma; 12.

PREVENTION

The GICS CTC provided activities have been recorded and evaluated in a structured manner. This statement paper is based on data of a narrative review as well as expert opinions.

RESULTS

The Trauma Working Group of GICS provided specialized trauma prevention leaflets available for translation to different languages. A one-day children's primary trauma course has been designed to be delivered at the physical GICS meetings. Exercising advocacy, the group addressed several meetings on prevention of pediatric trauma, which included the 75th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) (2020), GICS IVth meeting in Johannesburg (2020), Norwich (UK) Joint SPRINT Symposium on Pediatric Surgery for Pediatricians (2021), the second online Pan African Pediatric Surgical Association (PAPSA) meeting (2021), the seventh World Congress of the World Federation of Associations of Pediatric Surgeons (WOFAPS) in Prague (2022), and GICS pediatric trauma webinar (2023). Additionally, the working group participated in the preparations of a pediatric trauma module for the World Health Organization (WHO) and published several related studies. The contents of the selected articles added relevant information to the categories stated above.

CONCLUSIONS

The CTC initiative of GICS is proposed as a mean to address pediatric trauma comprehensively through a process of collaboration and advocacy with existing organizations to achieve awareness, health education, prevention, health, and training. Further, it will support the provision of suitable facilities to health institutions. The establishment of a specialization in pediatric trauma is encouraged. GICS CTC initiative aims to improve pediatric trauma care in LMICs by developing injury prevention strategies; optimizing the use of locally available resources; obtaining commitment by LMICs governments; improvement in all fields of hospital care; improvements in infrastructure, education and training, and attention to data registry and research.

A review of twenty-first century developments in paediatric surgery in Africa

This review explores the significant advancements in paediatric surgery in Africa during the twenty-first century, with a particular focus on capacity-building, education, infrastructural development, and research. Historically, paediatric surgery has been an overlooked sector, especially in low-and-middle-income countries in Africa. However, recent years have seen considerable progress. Collaborative efforts such as the Global Initiative for Children's Surgery, and the formation of the Pan African Paediatric Surgery Association, the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa and the West African College of Surgeons have facilitated knowledge sharing, collaboration, and advocacy for enhancing surgical standards. Local training programmes, including Master of Medicine programmes and fellowships, have been instrumental in building a skilled workforce. These initiatives have been complemented by infrastructural developments through non-governmental organisations like Kids Operating Room, which have expanded access to paediatric surgical care. Technological advancements, particularly in telemedicine, have further enhanced accessibility. Task-sharing strategies, where non-specialist physicians are trained in paediatric surgical skills, have also been utilised to address the shortage of specialised surgeons. Research in paediatric surgery has experienced an upswing, with local health professionals taking the lead. Research has been crucial for understanding the epidemiology of paediatric surgical conditions, and developing prevention strategies, and is increasingly leading to the inclusion of paediatric surgery in national health plans. Despite the progress, challenges remain, including the need for sustainable funding, continued investment in infrastructure, and training and retention of healthcare professionals. The review emphasises the importance of ongoing efforts in community engagement, innovative technologies, and health systems strengthening for the sustainable development of paediatric surgical services in Africa.

Children's Anaesthesia and perioperative care challenges, and innovations

The 2015 Sustainable Development Goals emphasise good health to all with reduced inequalities, and surgical and anaesthesia care is essential to achieve these. https://sdgs.un.org/goals. However, it has been estimated that 1.7 billion children do not have access to safe anaesthesia and surgery when needed and this disproportionately affects children in low- and middle-income countries (1). It is alarming that 1 in 10 individuals in LMICs do not have access to safe surgical care. Both safe surgery and anaesthesia are essential for ensuring that individuals receive proper medical attention. Economically viable public health initiatives that can avert many disability-adjusted years are needed. (2-4) Morbidity and mortality from surgical disease and anaesthesia care remain high in low-income countries, unlike in high-income countries. The incidence of severe anaesthesia-related critical events and perioperative cardiac arrest is between three and ten times more in LMICs than in HICs (5-7) A baseline POMR that is 100 times higher in LMICs compared to HICs is reported. (8) This perioperative morbidity and mortality gap is more evident in neonates and younger age groups, especially in children with congenital abnormalities. The challenges facing providers of anaesthesia and perioperative care are multifactorial and include but are not limited to the inadequate workforce, inadequate and inappropriate infrastructure, lack of adequate and appropriately sized equipment, including monitors, and safe monitoring capacity, supply chain challenges for medicines and reusable consumables, unreliable supply of oxygen and blood products, lack of data and research for policy formulation, inadequate resource allocation from governments and lack of safety culture among other things. In paediatrics, this is further multiplied by the variability in the sizes of the patients, from neonates to older children (9).

Barriers and challenges to achieving equity in global children's surgery: A call to action

CHALLENGES

A Call to Action.