Addressing the Millennium Development Goals From a Surgical Perspective

Abstract

Despite growing evidence suggesting that surgical care represents a cost-effective component of primary health care,^1-4 anyone who has ever worked in a low- and middle-income country (LMIC) health system knows that surgery and anesthesia have frequently been neglected.^5-10 While much attention has focused on attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), there has been little mention of how strengthening basic surgical care might help to achieve the targets, especially for MDGs 4 (reduction of child mortality), 5 (improvement of maternal health), and 6 (the combat of human immunodeficiency virus [HIV]/AIDS). Recently, however, the editors of PLoS Medicine characterized how surgery could play a crucial role in obtaining these goals.¹¹