Sarah Birra carried her second child to term and went into labor in 2015. At the time, Birra was a midwife and a member of an international research team working on a study to reduce childbirth risks. As labor progressed, Birra went to her local hospital in rural Mbarara, Uganda, where the consulting obstetrician was a colleague who was also involved in the study.
- By JAKE MILLER
A few minutes after Birra delivered a healthy baby boy, she began to bleed heavily - a massive post-partum hemorrhage. A blood transfusion was in order, but the hospital had no matching blood on hand and Birra's care team soon discovered there was none available anywhere in town.
With no way to secure the needed blood in time, doctors performed an emergency hysterectomy. After losing several liters of blood, Birra went into cardiac arrest.
"Despite resuscitative efforts, Sarah passed away," said Adeline Boatin,HMS assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Massachusetts General Hospital. At the time, fresh out of residency, Boatin was also a member of Birra's research team.
"Sarah's story is one of many," Boatin said, speaking at the 2024 Hollis L. Albright, MD '31 Symposium, an annual event that highlights new scientific initiatives at HMS. Boatin and Bethany Hedt-Gauthier, HMS associate professor of global health and social medicine, shared their work using digital innovations to improve surgical care in low-resources settings like Mbarara.
Indeed, more than five billion people in the world live without access to safe, effective, affordable surgical care, according to the 2015 Lancet Commission on Global Surgery.
Since the early 2000s, the growing academic field of global surgery has been building the foundation for a new approach to surgery focused on health equity. This approach enables research linking the needs of underserved communities to scalable solutions, integrates surgery into health systems, and educates a new generation of clinicians, researchers, and advocates for universal access to surgical care.
The Harvard Medical School Program in Global Surgery and Social Change (PGSSC) has been one of the nerve centers of this transformation.
"While we mourn the senseless loss of our colleague and countless others like her," said Boatin, who is now co-director of research for the PGSSC, "there is another story to be told-a story of hope."
