Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Mar 9:14:261-269.
doi: 10.1016/j.xjon.2023.03.001. eCollection 2023 Jun.

The state of cardiac surgery in Ethiopia

Salem Argaw  1 , Abraham Genetu  2 , Dominique Vervoort  3   4 , Fekede D Agwar  5
Affiliations

The state of cardiac surgery in Ethiopia

Salem Argaw et al. JTCVS Open. .

Abstract

Objectives: Six billion people globally do not have access to cardiac surgical care. In this study, we aimed to describe state of cardiac surgery in Ethiopia.

Methods: Data on status of local cardiac surgery collected from surgeons and cardiac centers. Medical travel agents were interviewed about number of cardiac patients who were assisted to travel abroad for surgery. Historical data and number of patients treated by non-governmental organizations were collected via interviews and by accessing existing databases.

Results: Patients access cardiac care via 3 avenues: mission-based, abroad referral, and care at local centers. Traditionally, the first 2 have been the main mode of access; however, since 2017, an entirely local team has begun performing heart surgery in the country. Currently, surgical cardiac care is provided at 4 local centers: a charity organization, a tertiary public hospital, and 2 for-profit centers. Procedures at the charity center are provided for free, whereas in others, patients mostly pay out of pocket. There are only 5 cardiac surgeons for 120 million people. More than 15,000 patients are on waitlist for surgery, mainly because of lack of consumables and limited numbers of centers and workforce.

Conclusions: There is a change in the trend from non-governmental mission- and referral-based care toward care in local centers in Ethiopia. The local cardiac surgery workforce is growing but still insufficient. The number of procedures is limited with long wait lists due to limited workforce, infrastructure, and resources. All stakeholders should work on training more workforce, providing consumables, and creating feasible financing schemes.

Keywords: LMIC; access to cardiac surgery; cardiac surgery; cardiac surgery workforce; global cardiac surgery.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

None
Graphical abstract
None
Cardiac Center Ethiopia, where the first heart surgery by full local team was done.
Figure 1
Figure 1
Map of cardiac services.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The state of cardiac surgery in Ethiopia. NGO, Non-governmental organization.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Roth G.A., Mensah G.A., Johnson C.O., Addolorato G., Ammirati E., Baddour L.M., et al. Global burden of cardiovascular diseases and risk factors, 1990-2019. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2020;76:2982–3021. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Vervoort D., Swain J.D., Pezzella A.T., Kpodonu J. Cardiac surgery in low- and middle-income countries: a state-of-the-art review. Ann Thorac Surg. 2021;111:1394–1400. - PubMed
    1. Vervoort D., Meuris B., Meyns B., Verbrugghe P. Global cardiac surgery: access to cardiac surgical care around the world. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2020;159:987–996.e6. - PubMed
    1. Zilla P., Yacoub M., Zühlke L., Beyersdorf F., Sliwa K., Khubulava G., et al. Global unmet needs in cardiac surgery. Glob Heart. 2018;13:293–303. - PubMed
    1. Kempny A., Dimopoulos K., Uebing A., Diller G.P., Rosendahl U., Belitsis G., et al. Outcome of cardiac surgery in patients with congenital heart disease in England between 1997 and 2015. PLoS One. 2017;12 - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources