Underfunding may contribute to higher mortality for patients in Latin America receiving surgery

Professor Rupert Pearse, NIHR Professor of Intensive Care Medicine from Queen Mary’s William Harvey Research Institute, and an international group of colleagues examined the records of 22,000 patients undergoing inpatient surgery across 17 Latin American countries. Their study found that 1 in 7 people developed complications after surgery, with 1 in 7 of those dying without ever leaving the hospital.