Global Surgery and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
In the pursuit of a better and fairer world, the United Nations outlined 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which encompass a broad spectrum of global challenges.
Global surgery is the “rapidly developing multidisciplinary field aiming to provide improved and equitable surgical care across international health systems.” Surgery naturally falls into Sustainable Development Goal 3: Health & Wellbeing - "Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages."
However surgery’s reach and impact goes well beyond SDG 3. We believe reconstructive surgery - surgery ultimately performed to repair and restore function - has an impact across the SDGs. Reconstructive surgery plays a crucial role in achieving these goals and in contributing to transforming lives worldwide.
SDG 1: No Poverty
Reconstructive surgery helps individuals regain their ability to work and earn a living by restoring physical functionality. This empowers people to break free from the cycle of poverty and contributes to achieving the first SDG.
SDG 2: Zero Hunger
Improved physical functionality through surgery ensures individuals can engage in the economy including productive agricultural activities, which is one way of addressing hunger and food security.
SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being
The third SDG aims to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all. Reconstructive surgery plays a pivotal role in this goal by restoring health, mobility, and quality of life for individuals who have suffered injuries, and disabilities.
SDG 4: Quality Education
Children with disabilities often face barriers to education. Reversing disabilities through surgery paves the way for inclusive, quality education, making progress towards the fourth SDG.
SDG 5: Gender Equality
Women seeking surgical care are burdened with gender disparities, particularly in resource-limited settings. Such disparities can lead to women often presenting late with advanced disease and poor prognoses. Surgical interventions can empower women by addressing issues like obstetric fistulas and gender-based violence injuries. Gender equality, the fifth SDG, benefits hugely from closing the gap in access to surgical interventions for women to live full, healthy and active lives.
SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
Access to clean water and sanitation is closely tied to good health. Surgical procedures that restore health contribute to this vital sixth SDG.
SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
Reconstructive surgery allows individuals to return to the workforce, supporting decent work and economic growth, central to the eighth SDG.
SDG 10: Reduced Inequality
Disability-reversing surgery contributes to reducing inequalities by providing equal opportunities for individuals with disabilities, thereby advancing the tenth SDG.
SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
Rehabilitated individuals who have regained mobility and functionality can participate actively in their communities, which aligns with the eleventh SDG.
SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
In regions affected by conflict, reconstructive surgery promotes justice and peace by helping victims of violence regain their physical and emotional well-being, and participate in the decision-making in their communities for a safer future.
SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals
Global surgery requires collaboration between governments, NGOs, healthcare professionals, and donors. Achieving these surgical interventions necessitates strong partnerships. Swisscross is privileged to be able to work with global and national healthcare professionals and organizations to be able to provide reconstructive surgery to some of the most vulnerable populations in Iraq.
It is these partnerships including UAE Aid, KRG Ministry of Health, Barzani Charity Foundation, Médecins Sans Frontières, (Doctors Without Borders), SEED Foundation, to name a few, that allow many of the SDGs to be realized.
Global surgery, particularly reconstructive and disability-reversing surgery, is a silent hero in the quest to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. It touches the lives of countless individuals, restoring hope and enabling them to actively participate in the transformation of their communities. As the world strives for a better future, let us remember that the power of healing and transformation through surgical interventions is instrumental in advancing the SDGs and creating a more equitable, prosperous, and sustainable world for all.
