Policy Prioritisation in SOTA Care
Status: Ongoing
Topic Tags: surgical care, policy prioritisation
SDG Tags: Good health and well-being
Scope: India
Sponsors: None
ASAR Members involved: Siddhesh Zadey, Ritika Shetty, Anushka Jindal, Himanshu Iyer
Summary
The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS) published data on the poor quality of surgical care in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Poor surgical care is responsible for high mortality and morbidity from surgical conditions.
Government-appointed committees and relevant national policies have guided health planning in India for the past eight decades. Therefore, analysing policy prioritisation of surgical care presents an appropriate medium to assess the overall importance given to surgical planning in India.
We assessed forty documents of national importance published between 1946 and 2017 for a predetermined set of surgical keywords. The keywords were chosen based on their relevance to surgery and surgical care. The number of mentions obtained against a search for these keywords was used as a proxy to assess the relative prioritisation given to surgical care.
Research Aims
The main aim of this project is to gauge the national policy prioritisation of surgical care in India. This can help us assess the level of surgical planning in the country.
Advocacy aims
1. This study aims to ensure adequate representation of surgical care in the national health planning of the country.
2. India also lacks a National Surgical, Obstetric and Anaesthesia Plan (NSOAP) which forms the framework for surgical care implementation in a country. The creation of an NSOAP is of utmost priority for India.