KidsOR has helped to create £1 billion of economic benefit

Today, we are celebrating a significant landmark. Since our inception in 2018, we have helped to give more than 43,000 children access to life-changing or life-saving surgery – and we can reveal that the economic benefit of these operations has broken the £1 billion mark. 

Through independent research, we have calculated that a child undergoing an operation in one of our Operating Rooms in Africa or Latin America is projected to go on to contribute an average of £26,000 in additional GDP in the years to come.

CEO David Cunningham said: “When a child has a lifesaving operation, or an operation that cures a simple condition like incontinence, that allows the child to stay in school and grow up to contribute to their nation’s economy, we can calculate what the economic benefit to that country was of the child surviving or being able to go to school. A core part of our mission is to produce the evidence desperately needed to show that providing surgical care is one of the most impactful investments you can make in global health. 

“At KidsOR, we rely on academic partners to conduct independent research to evaluate the impact of our work. For every operation performed in one of our partner hospitals, a local data collector records key data about the operation and its outcomes, as well as its impact on the child and their family.”

David added:

“With all of that in mind, we are delighted to have reached the incredible landmark of £1 billion in economic benefit generated for our partner nations. But our work will not stop here, and we are already working to create many more Operating Rooms and to train many more local surgeons in countries where they are needed the most.”

A single operation taking place in one of our Operating Rooms is estimated to prevent an average of 17.1 years of life lost due to disability or premature death. This is the key metric used by the World Health Organisation to assess the global burden of disease.

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