Climate change: challenges and opportunities to scale up surgical, obstetric, and anaesthesia care globally

Building sustainable and resilient surgical systems: A narrative review of opportunities to integrate climate change into national surgical planning in the Western Pacific region

“…Strategic planning in surgical system strengthening, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and disaster risk reduction should be closely integrated. 103 , 121 Collaboration between multisectoral stakeholders is required for a health-in-all policy approach.…”

Systematic media review: A novel method to assess mass-trauma epidemiology in absence of databases—A pilot-study in Rwanda

“…Increased frequency and intensity of natural hazards is a known effect of climate change [ 30 , 31 ]. Countries with weak health infrastructure are especially vulnerable [ 32 ] and it is therefore imperative that developing trauma systems and national surgical/disaster plans also take into consideration changing meteorologic patterns [ 33 , 34 ]. According to recent data by the Ministry in Charge of Emergency Management, landslides and floods are the predominant types of natural hazards in Rwanda [ 14 , 15 ], when excluding lightning which is not typically included in the four main categories of natural disasters: hydrological, meteorological, climatological, and geophysical disasters [ 35 ].…”

Sustainability in surgery: implications for the future

“…Steps must be taken to mitigate future crises but also address contribution from surgery to the problem. Operating theatres contribute 3–6 times the greenhouse gas compared to elsewhere in the hospital and 20–30% of the 42 000 tons of solid waste produce by Victorian public hospitals in 2019 13,14 . Reliance on single use plastics also has less‐obvious value implications, including vulnerability to supply variation, illustrated by 2020's global shortage of sterilization wraps that threatened Australian surgical services.…”