Safe, timely, respectful surgical care for all women who need it.
The GSF Women’s Health Programme prioritises the following areas to address women’s surgical needs and to catalyse meaningful and sustained impact: Maternal Health, Cervical Cancer, and Breast Cancer.
Safe, timely, and appropriate caesarean section SAVES LIVES, preventing 100,000 maternal deaths (over 30%) and reducing newborn deaths by 30-70% annually.
Maternal Health
Timely, appropriate surgical care for breast cancer SAVES LIVES, addressing a gap in care for the most common cancer globally that kills 1 in 3 women diagnosed with it.
Breast Cancer
Early stage surgical care for cervical cancer SAVES LIVES, addressing a gap that kills 1 woman every 2 minutes globally.
Cervical Cancer
Our mission
To improve the health of women, families, and communities in low- and middle-income countries by accelerating access to innovative, practical, evidence-based, and sustainable safe surgery programs.
Our targets
Maternal Health
>30%
reduction in
institutional maternal deaths
Breast Cancer
80%
of women
undergo multimodality treatment
without abandonment
Cervical Cancer
90%
of women
identified with cervical cancer disease receive treatment and care
Women are dying due to insufficient access to surgical care. We can and must change this.
Dr. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
GSF Board Member | Former UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women | Former Deputy-President of South Africa
Our approach
Catalysing meaningful impact for women and communities.
We focus on locally led, locally driven programs that address local priorities and gender equality.
We prioritise a comprehensive approach:
Partnerships
Workforce capacity development
Strengthening networks of care and referral systems
Integrating innovative approaches and digital tech to bridge gaps
Use of data for continuous learning, adapting, and generating evidence
Ensuring facility readiness
Our approach applies a scalable and sustainable model for improving women’s health:
Our projects
Explore how our locally led, locally driven, women-centered projects are improving the health and well-being of women.
Breast Cancer Programme at the GSF
Our breast cancer programme is focused on addressing diagnostic and treatment delays for breast cancer and barriers to access for patients. We address these and other barriers, aligned with WHO’s Global Breast Cancer Initiative Implementation Framework.
C-Safe project
This project aims to develop, implement, and evaluate a multi-faceted interventional strategy targeting healthcare professionals, pregnant women, and health systems to reduce maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity following CS in LMICs.
Safe CS in Kano, Nigeria
This project aims to improve maternal and perinatal outcomes through safe, timely, appropriate, and respectful CS care for over 27,000 women giving birth each year in Kano, Nigeria.
Strengthening Access to Breast Cancer Surgery in Rwanda
This project will aim to improve outcomes for women with breast cancer in Rwanda through a robust programme to improve training, patient navigation, and data systems.
Obstetric Safe Surgery (OSS) in Nakuru County, Kenya
This SURGfund-supported project aims to improve maternal and perinatal outcomes through safe, timely, appropriate, and respectful caesarean section (CS) care for over 25,000 women giving birth each year across five facilities in Nakuru County, Kenya.
Optimising Safe Surgical Care in Nepal’s Koshi Province (Nepal OSSC)
This project aims to greatly reduce the number of mothers and newborns who die or suffer complications linked to caesarean section in Koshi Province.
Where we work
Our partners
We work with governments and our local and international partners to deliver locally led, locally driven projects in women’s health.
Our Women’s Health team
Working to make surgical care available to all women.
Prof. Hadiza Galadanci
GSF Advisor, Women’s Health
Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Bayero University Kano
Dr. Anmol Patted
Academic Fellow
Ms. Nefti Bempong-Ahun
Project Manager
Dr. Sara
Nasser
GSF Advisor, Women’s Health
Charite Comprehensive Cancer Center
Ms. Yuval Cohen
Project Associate
Dr. Mélanie Samson
Senior Technical Officer
Dr. John Varallo
Team Lead
Dr. Rahel
Nardos
GSF Advisor, Women’s Health
Director of Global Women’s Health at the Center for Global Health & Social Responsibility, University of Minnesota
Dr. Kusum
Thapa
GSF Advisor, Women’s Health
Senior Technical Advisor Maternal and Newborn Health, Jhpiego
News and updates
Latest updates from our women’s health programme.
Videos
Watch videos from our women’s health programme.
Publications
Read publications related to our work in women’s health.
We cannot do it alone!
Sign up with your email in the website footer below to receive updates. And get in touch with our women’s health team at m.samson@globalsurgeryfoundation.org.