Medicina dei diritti in Africa
Programme for access to specialised surgical care in Sudan and Uganda.
Starting date
1 January 2024Duration
12 monthsRealized by:
“Emergency – Life Support for Civilian War Victims” ONG ONLUSObjectives
Reducing the burden of lack of access to specialist surgery on the African continent in a perspective of respect for human rights and the right to care.
Ensuring adequate access to specialist surgery in Sudan and Uganda, where EMERGENCY has its Centres of Excellence in Cardiac Surgery and Paediatric Surgery respectively, and in at least 15 other African countries reached through the Regional Programme.
Although there have been remarkable developments in global health over the past 25 years, these advances have been far from equitable, and the urgent need for surgical care in the world’s poorest regions is proof of this.
The project therefore aims to address the inequity of the global health care system currently based on two-tier medicine, in which poorer countries do not have access to quality health care. The vision is based on the idea that access to quality care is a human right and, as such, must be available to all, hence free of charge. In particular, the project aims to invest in access to surgical care in Africa by proposing an integrated health service, with secondary and tertiary level facilities freely accessible to all, especially the most vulnerable, as well as offering specialised training.
The specific choice to focus on surgery responds to the urgency to take action in this direction as deaths due to lack of access to surgery are five times higher than those caused by malaria, tuberculosis and HIV combined, and public health investments in the sector are rather insufficient if not absent in most African countries.
