Dear Colleagues,

We have received disheartening news from the World Health Organization that a decision has been taken to discontinue funding for Dr. Meena Cherian’s position as of December 31, 2010 due to a lack of funding. For all intents and purposes, this will functionally mean the end of the Emergency & Essential Surgical Care (EESC) program at the WHO. Thus, further development of EESC projects, including content updates and translations for Surgical Care at the District Hospital, expansion of the IMEESC Toolkit, and WHO support of surgical skills training workshops in Low- and Middle-Income countries will all come to an end. Furthermore, each of you who has utilized the EESC program as a coordination body facilitating access to the WHO country office or the respective Ministry of Health where your health systems improvement project is being implemented will no longer have this facility.

The sole reason cited in the decision to abolish the WHO EESC program was a lack of funds within the Organization. Allocation of funds is clearly a function of institutional priorities, and this decision represents, in our view, a perspective that does not recognize the true global burden of surgical disease which includes unmet surgical, obstetrical, and anesthesia needs of the world’s most impoverished populations. We believe we must bring this oversight to the attention of the WHO leadership, which is bound to listen to their member states’ input.

Thus, we are requesting IMMEDIATE ACTION on your part:

  1. Please individually FAX a letter to Dr. Margaret Chan,Director-General of WHO (Tel: +41 22 791 2222; Fax: +41 22 791 3504; Email: ) emphasizing the importance of the EESC program. Please state in specific terms what the program means for you and your country as well as the accomplishments Dr. Cherian and her office have assisted you with in the past.
  2. Please individually FAX a letter to Dr. Carissa Etienne, Assistant Director-General, Health Systems and Services (Tel: +41 22 791 8899; Fax: +41 22 791 3111; Email: ) again emphasizing the specific strengths of the WHO EESC program as implemented in your country.
  3. MORE IMPORTANT than your own letter, please contact your WHO Country Office, and communicate directly with the WHO country representative or officer (links to offices by region can be found here).[1] Request specifically that he or she relay to WHO leadership the importance of surgical care and identify the EESC program as a funding priority. This might best be done through internal WHO channels, but ideally we would like to preserve copies of any such correspondence so that we can compile a larger file of supporting letters (please forward email messages or scanned copies to or fax to +01 215 243 4583). Such a larger collection may be useful when approaching possible donors in future.
  4. MOST IMPORTANTLY, please contact your Minister of Health or highest health authority[2] and similarly request a letter indicating strong and specific support for the continuation of the WHO EESC program. Again, please request direct communication via fax to the WHO DG and ADG offices, with copies forwarded for archival (email to or fax to +01 215 243 4583)

Our thanks go out to you all for your sustained efforts to support this important effort at the WHO. The most important voices that need to be heard now if the program is to be salvaged must be from the developing world who must identify surgical care as a clear need for which they require the support from the WHO.

Please do not delay as time is of the essence.

Fizan Abdullah, MD, PhD

Associate Professor, Division of Pediatric Surgery

Assistant Program Director, Residency in General Surgery

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

600 N. Wolfe Street, Harvey 319

Baltimore, MD 21287

Tel:+01 410 9551983

Fax:+01 4105025314

Email:

Maureen McCunn, MD, MIPP, FCCM

Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine

University of Pennsylvania

3400 Spruce Street, Dulles 6

Philadelphia, PA 19104

Tel: +01 215 662 7832

Email:

Stephen W. Bickler, MD, FACS

Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics

University of California, San Diego

Tel: +01 858 966 7711

Email:

David A Spiegel

Division of Orthopaedic Surgery

Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia

Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery

The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Consultant in Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation

Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre for Disabled Children

Banepa, Nepal

Tel: +01 215 590 1524

Email:

Doruk Ozgediz, MD, MSc

Assistant Professor

Department of Surgery and Global Health Sciences, University of California San Francisco

San Francisco, California

Email:

Kelly McQueen, MD, MPH

Co-founder

The Alliance for Surgery and Anesthesia Presence

Email:

Adam L. Kushner, MD, MPH, FACS

Surgeon/Director

Society of International Humanitarian Surgeons/

Surgeons OverSeas (SOS)

Tel: +019176974040

Email:

Francis A. Abantanga
Associate Professor
Consultant Paediatric Surgeon
Head, Department of Surgery
School of Medical Sciences

Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology
Kumasi, Ghana

Tel: +233268168700.

Prof. Afua A. J. Hesse
Director of Medical Affairs, Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital
University of Ghana Medical School
P.O. Box KB 263
Accra, Ghana
Tel: +233 26 437 0429

Rachel T. Moresky, MD, MPH, FACEP

Director, International Emergency Medicine &sidHARTe Program Ghana

Assistant Professor of Medicine & Forced Migration and Health

Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons and Mailman School of Public Health

phone: +1 212 304 5745

Email:

Henry B. Perry, MD, PhD, MPH

Senior Associate

Department of International Health, Room E8536

Bloomberg School of Public Health

Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore, MD 21210

Email:

[1] To our colleagues in the USA, please contact: Dr. Mirta Roses Periago, Director, Pan American Health Organization / Pan American Sanitary Bureau, Regional Office of the World Health Organization; Tel: (202) 974-3000; Fax: (202) 974-3663; Email:

[2] To our colleagues in the USA, please contact: Dr. Nils Daulaire, Director of the Office of Global Health Affairs, US Department of Health & Human Services, Head of the U.S. Delegation to UN World Health Assembly; Tel: (202) 690-6174; Fax: (202) 690-7127 ; Email: