ArticlePLOS global public health2024
The Pan-African Surgical Healthcare Forum: An African qualitative consensus propagating continental national surgical healthcare policies and plans.
Article in PLOS global public health, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Analysis of bilateral development assistance for surgery in low- and middle-income countries: trends, challenges and opportunities.BMJ global health · 2026Review
- Capacity building through workforce training and community engagement for Surgical, Obstetric, Trauma, and Anaesthesia (SOTA) care: Case studies from South Asia.Dialogues in health · 2026Review
- Quantifying multilateral contributions to surgical system development in low- and middle-income countries: an analysis of trends and opportunities.BMJ global health · 2026Article
- Cost-saving strategies for sustainable surgical care: a scoping review of efficiency models and potential approaches for low-income and middle-income countries.BMJ global health · 2026Article
- Current Landscape of Children's Surgery in Africa: A Multicenter Analysis of 16,000 Cases.World journal of surgery · 2025Article
- Who pays for surgical care in the global south? A narrative review.PLOS global public health · 2025Review
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Authors and funding
11 authors.
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Abstract
Access to equitable, safe, affordable, timely, and quality surgical healthcare in Africa remains limited. Few African countries have surgical healthcare plans or policies. Where these exist, there are significant gaps in dissemination, funding, and implementation. A Pan-African Surgical Healthcare Forum (PASHeF) was initiated to address this. The inaugural forum was a two-day consensus conference of technocrats from African Ministries of Health hosted by the Honorable Minister for Health of Rwanda in Kigali. Through coordinated discussions, plenary sessions, working groups, and technocrat networking, they charted the path forward for national surgical healthcare policies and plans. Discussions were sparked by country experiences, and working groups focused on curated context-specific, face-validated questions. Documentation involved field notes, audio recordings, and artificial intelligence transcription. Data was coded using a constant comparative method to itemize delegates' observations, declarations, and recommendations, with member checking. A consensus statement was generated using an inclusive decision-making model. Thirty-two Ministries of Health were represented by 42 delegates who drafted and unanimously adopted the PASHeF 2023 Consensus Statement. This was a 50-point consensus addressing country commitment, leadership, financing, stakeholder mobilization, monitoring and evaluation, partnerships, and other aspects of national surgical healthcare planning in Africa. This consensus is the African roadmap and emphasizes implementation, the need for flexibility in policy development, and current opportunities and barriers. It emphasizes that community involvement and sustainability should undergird this planning, in addition to a focus on the entire spectrum of surgical healthcare, including prevention and rehabilitation. Delegates endorsed PASHeF as an annual event with a secretariat and recommended the creation of a Pan-African Surgical Healthcare Policy monitoring system, and that issues of surgical healthcare should be escalated as an agenda item on African Union and sub-regional ministerial meetings. African nations have embraced surgical healthcare policy as an imperative on their journey towards Universal Health Coverage.
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Registered trials
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