TABLE 15.

Surgical skill requirements¹⁰⁹

1. Surgical care must be effective and safe.

2. Surgical care must be widely accessible, either by transport systems or by regional centers.

3. Surgical care must be affordable within the local and national capacity.

4. Surgical care must be appropriate for local situations. Infrastructure, such as supply of electricity, communications, available laboratory and pharmaceutical capacity, and so forth must be considered in planning.

5. The surgical care system must be locally sustainable. Repeated provision of services by external visiting surgical teams can be extremely helpful, but should not take the place of permanent and affordable local programs.