Directorate: Corporate, NGO, Field Operations Liaisons:

• Stephen M. Apatow: Founder of Humanitarian Resource Institute and the United Nations Arts Initiative, Director of Research and Development, Humanitarian University Consortium Graduate Studies Center for Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and Law.
  

In The Spotlight

• Vet2011: Veterinary Appeal from Japan - Earthquake/Tsunami Disaster: Humanitarian Resource Institute, 16 March 2011. Includes: UNArts For Japan Relief - Notes from HRI Founder Stephen Michael Apatow
  
• H-II: Stephen Michael Apatow Named Ambassador for Vet2011 Global Initiative: Humanitarian Resource Institute, 7 February 2011.
  
• MMP:  Hospital Acquired Infections - Surveillance, Containment & Control: July 2010: HRI:UNArts - Millennium Medicine Project, United Nations Arts Initiative. 27 July 2010.
  
• MMP:  Trauma Medicine - Orthopedics: July 2010: HRI:UNArts - Millennium Medicine Project, United Nations Arts Initiative. 23 July 2010.
  
• MMP: H5N1/H1N1 Atypical Infections: Viral Encephalitis/Meningitis: HRI:UNArts - Millennium Medicine Project, United Nations Arts Initiative. 13 July 2010.
  
• HRI:UNArts - Millennium Medicine Project Targets 5 Billion who Lack Access to Basic Surgical Services: Humanitarian Resource Instutute, United Nations Arts Initiative. 7 July 2010.  See Also: H-II - CMA Artist Stephen Michael Apatow Kicks Off The Millennium Medicine Project: Music News Information Network, 8 July 2010.
• CMA Artist Stephen Michael Apatow Promotes "One World, One Health" World Veterinary Day 2010: Music Industry News Network, 24 April 2010. See also: HRI:UNArts - One World, One Health: World Veterinary Day 2010: Humanitarian Resource Institute, 23 April 2010.

Overview

3.5 billion people live in severe poverty,  2.4 billion people lack access to basic sanitation and over 1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water....  Each day in the developing world, 30,000 children die from mostly preventable and treatable causes such as diarrhea, acute respiratory infections or malaria. [1]  

In the context of the worlds most wealthy countries, according to the "World Vision responds to G20 Communiqué" [2]:

• While G20 leaders have been focused on finding concrete solutions to economic challenges, almost 14,000 children in their own countries will have died, mostly from preventable causes.
• These countries are now the 21st century’s economic powerhouses, with 87 per cent of the world’s GDP, yet many are still failing to address dire living conditions and lack of access to health services in their communities. 

The World Health Organization Global Initiative for Emergency and Essential Surgical Care (GIEESC) was established in December 2005 as an international collaboration of Ministries of Health, WHO country offices, local and international organizations and academia. GIEESC is involved in reducing death and disability from road traffic accidents, trauma, burns, falls, pregnancy related complications, domestic violence, disasters and other surgical conditions. The specific objectives are:

• strengthen capacity to deliver effective emergency surgical care at the first referral level facility, working towards achieving the WHO Millennium Development Goals
• improve the quality of care through safe and appropriate use of emergency and essential surgical procedures and linked equipment in resource limited healthcare facilities
• strengthen existing training and education programs in safety of essential procedures in low and middle income countries

Today, despite the formation of GIEESC in 2005, 5 Billion people across the globe lack access to basic surgical services and advanced medical technologies.  

Even after half a century of independence, “not more than 20 percent of the population has any access to….. basic surgical services like life saving caesarian section, or a life saving repair of typhoid perforation…” (National Human Development Report 2001). This situation can be improved only if there is adequate number of rural surgeons in India whose surgery is affordable and available near the homes of the patients.  -- Realising the vital role of rural surgeons in the nation’s health care, Dr. Gazeiry, MD., FRCS., the past Regional Director of W.H.O. East Mediterranean Region remarked that rural surgery be made into a specialty.

The concept of rural surgery has been developed in India in the last thirteen years to make modern surgical care accessible to the five billion havenots of the developing world. Only one billion out the total of six billion population of the world has any access to the type of surgical care seen in the hospital of Western Europe and America. In India, out of the population of one billion as of today, not more than 10% has any access to this type of surgical care. -- Association of Rural Surgeons in India. [3]

References:

1. The Ultimate Objective: Humanitarian Resource Institute. Url: http://www.humanitarian.net/interfaith/studycenter/Omnia_vincit_amor
2. World Vision responds to G20 Communiqué: 27 June 2010. Url: http://www.wvi.org/wvi/wviweb.nsf/maindocs/
A52C3000496FA92A882577500003F68D
3. Association of Rural Surgeons in India. Url: http://www.arsi-india.org

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