Ghana, 6 others benefit from £7m global surgery initiative

Ghana and six other developing countries are benefitting from a £7 million funding for an increased surgical capacity and prevention of postoperative complications.

The funding is helping to train non-surgeons to perform essential hernia operations, a medical condition that is said to pose a major problem, especially in men, with five million patients awaiting surgery in sub-Saharan Africa, stopping young men from providing for their families.

The other beneficiary countries are India, South Africa, Rwanda, Nigeria, Benin and Mexico.

The funding is from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) based in the United Kingdom under the Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery (GSU).

It is to help coordinate surgical research in the seven beneficiary countries.

It is also to support a world-leading global surgical research team led from the University of Birmingham in the UK to continue its work in boosting post-operative recovery in the beneficiary countries.

The team of researchers would also test simple innovations such as the use of high-dose oxygen, mouthwashes and inhalers, as well as bring innovation back into the health systems of high-income countries by piloting innovative practices in those developing countries by proving their worth ahead of a wider roll-out.

The project, which started in 2020, will run for five years.

The project is providing training for non-surgeon medical doctors to enable them to provide basic surgery procedures and proper care for hernia patients.

In Ghana the project to provide surgery for hernia patients is taking place in health facilities in rural, peri-urban and urban areas in the Bono, Bono East, Central, Western, Western North, Upper East, Upper West, Eastern and Ashanti regions, with the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Korle Bu Teaching Hospital and the Tamale Teaching Hospitals being part of the beneficiary facilities.

NIHR

The NIHR is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care, and it has worked in low-and-middle income countries.

It is principally funded through the UK Aid from the UK government.

Established in 2017, the new NIHR funding would allow the GSU to continue its global research for at least a further five years.

The GSU coordinates a global network of surgeons that include over 20,000 clinicians from over 100 countries, and operate in a ‘hub and spoke model” in the seven beneficiary countries, with each hub acting as an independent research centre for conducting clinical trials and cohort studies, as well as supporting local and international research training and education.

The network consists of more than 100 urban and rural hospitals in the seven countries, some in the most remote parts of the world.

Based at the University of Birmingham, it is co-directed by Prof. Dion Morton, Barling Chair of Surgery, and Prof. Stephen Tabiri, Dean of the Medical School at the University for Development Studies (UDS) in Tamale, Ghana.

Initiative

Prof. Morton, commenting on the initiative, said: “Delivering safe and effective surgical care across the world is one of the greatest challenges facing global health today. Our work impacts the most disadvantaged and vulnerable populations of the world. We are training surgeons in these countries to continue the research drive that is helping to save lives”.

In an interaction with the Daily Graphic, Prof. Tabiri, who is also the Director of the Ghana Hub on Global Surgery, said: “Clinical research output is very low in Africa and Ghana in particular. African researchers contributed only one per cent to global clinical medical publications between 2004 and 2008, half of which were produced from South Africa.

He stated that there was, therefore, an urgent need to equip the future generation of Ghanaian surgeons with research skills through sustainable collaboration.

Prof. Tabiri, a professor in surgery at the Department of Surgery, UDS, and Consultant Surgeon at the Tamale Teaching Hospital, stated that the GSU ran a range of cohort studies, qualitative research and clinical trials aimed at reducing complications from surgical wound infection, improving outcomes from cancer surgery, perioperative care and developing the surgical workforce.

He added that it also provided a roadmap for resilient surgical systems during and post-pandemics, evaluating access to health care for surgical patients, and developing surgical research relevant to rural surgery.