Helping people get back on their feet

Every year, acci­dents cause an esti­ma­ted four million fata­li­ties world­wide and leave 30 million people with perma­nent physi­cal disa­bi­li­ties. As the AO Alli­ance Foun­da­tion points out, bone frac­tures resul­ting from traf­fic acci­dents, falls, dome­stic violence, etc. are an important global public health problem. It is a little-known fact that, as well as caus­ing lifel­ong disa­bi­li­ties in many cases, these types of injury are also respon­si­ble for 30 percent more deaths than the three biggest commu­ni­ca­ble dise­a­ses (HIV/AIDS, mala­ria and tuber­cu­lo­sis) combi­ned. Only a negli­gi­ble propor­tion of the total deve­lo­p­ment aid poured into health­care is available for acci­dent treat­ment. This makes long-term part­ner­ships with orga­ni­sa­ti­ons such as the John­son & John­son Foun­da­tion all the more important to the AO Alli­ance Foun­da­tion. Toge­ther, the two foun­da­ti­ons run the West Africa Trauma Educa­tion Program (WATEP) – a project they set up in West Africa (Ghana, Nige­ria and Côte d’Ivoire) in 2019. The aim is to estab­lish local, long-term capa­ci­ties for trea­ting inju­ries and frac­tures, streng­thening the health­care system over the long term and ensu­ring the neces­sary exper­tise in acci­dent surgery. A detailed report will be available to read at thephilanthropist.ch from September.