Building Humanitarian Surgical Capacity

As a Research Fellow with University of Manchester’s Humanitarian Conflict Response Institute, I worked to provide Royal College Surgeons England and partners with a clear path towards building humanitarian surgical capacity in low-resource settings, and move to a sustainable model of recruitment and deployment of local/national surgeons and surgical care teams to humanitarian crises. 

Health systems in low resource settings are characteristically weakened, rendering them extremely vulnerable when a humanitarian crisis or major disaster occurs. Traditionally, the delivery of the ‘humanitarian surgical response’ in low resource settings has been through the recruitment and deployment of surgeons and surgical care teams from other countries, mainly as volunteers. This project identified, supported and piloted novel ways to deliver high standards of training and capacity strengthening, with an emphasis on approaches already being utilised in low resource humanitarian settings for national and local health personnel.