Millennium Alliance Awards 2018: Making Minimally Invasive Surgeries Available and Affordable – A Report

Millennium Alliance [1] program is organized by FICCI [2] and DST of the Indian Government to encourage innovations that have significant impact on the Society. The awards are given after receiving thousands of applications and selecting few to undergo a rigorous process of selection. One of the awardees in 2018 in the Health Sector was SEESHA and Karunya University [3]. This is a short report about the project.

THE CHALLENGE THAT IS BEING ADDRESSED

1. Mizoram with a population of 14 lakhs has 200 surgeries per 100,000 population while the estimated need is 5,000 per 100,000 population [Lancet]. This figure is the lowest in Arunachal Pradesh where it is only 30 per year per one lakh population
2. Expensive equipment, logistic nightmare of providing bottled gases and trained anesthesiologists in rural areas make conventional MIS very difficult and are beyond the reach of the poor
3. Trained surgeons do not continue to stay in rural areas and those who stay do not have sufficient work or infrastructure

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