“Surgery is required to save lives, cure cancers and improve the quality of one’s life. Yet if you have surgery in Africa, these benefits come at a cost. Patients are twice as likely to die following surgery than if they had surgery elsewhere. Sadly, a mother in Africa is 50 times more likely to die following a caesarean delivery than in the United States, and children are 11 times more likely to die following surgery compared to children in high-income countries. Nearly a billion people in Africa either do not get surgery when it is needed, receive surgery too late, or are at increased risk of death following surgery.”  

Bruce Biccard, Safer Surgery for Africa