Establishment
The GIEESC is a partnership of organizations,Creation
The Clinical Procedures Unit of the WHO recognized a need for improved surgical care at the first referral-level health facilities, which typically are district hospitals. The "WHO Meeting towards A Global Initiative for Emergency and Essential Surgical Care" at the WHO headquarters inMission statement
GIEESC's stated goals include: improving the already existing training and education programs essential to executing emergency surgical care; developing district hospitals' surgical, obstetric, trauma, and anesthesia services; training personnel with the appropriate skills to treat patients; continuing education to maintain those skills; and finally, developing a dependable system that facilitates access to medication and medicinal drugs.Challenges
Challenges to those goals include: inadequate equipment to "perform simple but vital interventions such as resuscitation, the provision of oxygen, assessment ofStrategies and Implementation
Policies
GIEESC's policies require implementing a national plan to standardize district hospitals' surgical services by including requirements for basic surgical treatment. Hospitals must be clearly committed to educating and training health care professionals to react appropriately when dealing with surgery, trauma, obstetrics and anesthesia.Quality and safety
GIEESC demands national guidelines on standards for personnel, standard operating procedures, and evaluations, based on quality of actual procedures and equipment involved.Tool kit
The "Integrated Management for Emergency and Essential Surgical Care (IMEESC) tool kit" for implementing procedures involves a set of five cds containing recommendations for standards in emergency surgical care in surgery, trauma,Country reports
September 24–25, 2007, inAfrica
Tanzania
There were 36 million inhabitants but only 100 surgeons, and 1/3 of them had left the country. The GIEESC project started in January 2007 organized a task force to train twenty health care providers (with at least one from nine different zones) in dilation, curettage, cesarean section, and trauma management. There will be a follow-up report in a year to evaluate the education the trainers brought to their respective zones.Ethiopia
With a population of over 75 million,Gambia
Ghana
A mycobacterial skin disease occurring primarily in children under 15 years old prompted theMozambique
The GIEESC had been holding courses on disaster management andUganda
Plans forZambia
Challenges to proper surgical care inCote d'Ivoire
Temporary surgical units in rural health centers have been set up, along with training of doctors there(“WHO Meeting").Asia
Mongolia
Various steps had been taken to improveIndia
The GIEESC’s two goals forKyrgyzstan
The country’s government was implementing health care reform by focusing on surgery, and a WHO toolkit was to be implemented at medical institutions to help.Middle East
Afghanistan
GIEESC had begun anesthesia training at sites in Faryab and Mazir-I Sharif, and equipment was donated for the purpose.South America
Guyana
The country’s health care budget was being redirected toward training of health care providers at basic facilities with surgical capabilities, with essential and emergency surgical care education central to the project.Other initiatives
The GIEESC was involved in various collaborations with other WHO departments: Transplantation, Health Action in Crises, Violence and Injury Prevention, Making Pregnancy Safer, Child and Adolescent Health, The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health, Communicable Diseases, Second Global Patient Safety Challenge: Safe Surgery Saves Lives, Health Inter Network Access to Research Initiative, Knowledge Management for Public Health, and the Clinical Procedures Unit. The GIEESC was also involved in global partnerships with:References
* "Challenges.” Emergency and Essential Surgical Care. World Health Organization. 30 Nov. 2008