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Neurosurgical advocates for global surgery/neurosurgery at the 75th World Health Assembly gathered in person for the first time after the COVID-19 pandemic in Geneva, Switzerland, in May 2022. This article reviews the significant progress in the global health landscape targeting neglected neurosurgical patients, emphasizing high-level policy advocacy and international efforts to support a new World Health Assembly resolution in mandatory folic acid fortification to prevent neural tube defects. The process of developing global resolutions through the World Health Organization and its member states is summarized. Two new global initiatives focused on the surgical patients among the most vulnerable member states are discussed, the Global Surgery Foundation and the Global Action Plan on Epilepsy and other Neurological Disorders. Progress toward a neurosurgery-inspired resolution on mandatory folic acid fortification to prevent spina bifida-folate is described. In addition, priorities for moving the global health agenda forward for the neurosurgical patient as it relates to the global burden of neurological disease are reviewed after the COVID-19 pandemic.
To address the staggering inequalities in access to neurosurgical care worldwide is the foundation of the global neurosurgery movement. The Global Neurosurgery Committee (GNC), which is part of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies (WFNS), represents the highest organizational level of the global neurosurgery movement. The endeavors of the inaugural GNC 1.0 culminated with the accomplishment of the Global Action Plan which objectives are to amplify, align, advance, assimilate and advocate for core neurosurgical activities such as the implementation and strengthening of neurosurgical capacity building into existing health systems1.
To operationalize and decentralize the Global Action Plan, the recently commissioned GNC 2.0 is divided into designated teams; importantly neurosurgical nursing is included for the first time in the history of the WFNS/GNC. We (Yee Yit Cheng, Malaysia and Camilla G. Aukrust, Norway) have been invited to lead the nursing team in the time 2021-2023. The overall main goal is to build relationships and to reinforce the neurosurgical nursing workforce, specifically focusing on low-and middle-income countries (LMIC). To reach the goal we have assembled a diverse and global team of professionals, and created a mini-strategic plan with specific and time bound objectives within the following areas; policy/advocacy, clinical training/education and research. The consolidated efforts of the team members will be instrumental to reach the targets of the strategic plan. In the following four paragraphs, we will briefly outline the main objectives of the GNC nursing teams’ strategic plan.
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