Abstract
Six billion people worldwide lack access to safe, timely, and affordable cardiac surgical
care when needed, despite cardiovascular diseases remaining the world's leading cause
of mortality. The large surgical backlog of rheumatic heart disease, stable and high
incidence of congenital heart disease, and growing burden of ischemic heart disease
around the world calls for urgent scaling of cardiovascular services beyond mere prevention.
National Surgical, Obstetric, and Anesthesia Plans are being developed by countries
as holistic health systems interventions to increase access to surgical care, but
to date, limited to no attention has been given to the inclusion of cardiovascular
care.
Keywords
global health - global surgery - governance
