Dr Neema Kaseje: is a humanitarian surgeon, health leader, and an expert in health systems strengthening in rural & refugee contexts. Her main focus is to work towards sustainable and comprehensive health services for refugee and host communities in Turkana by leveraging health insurance schemes including national health insurance funds.She is an expert in building pediatric surgical care delivery with previous experience in Kenya, Haiti, Congo, CAR, and Liberia. In Haiti, she served as the only pediatric surgeon in the public sector and scaled up pediatric surgical care delivery in the region through the training of junior doctors. As a result, her team was able to double the number of children accessing life saving pediatric surgical care. Similarly in Liberia, she was part of the first cohort of surgeons stationed to the first pediatric surgical program by a humanitarian organization such as Doctors Without Borders. Once again, she emphasized training and the setting of minimum standards and protocols as the foundation for improving access to pediatric surgical care in complex humanitarian settings. In Kenya, she has contributed to improved access to pediatric surgical care by leveraging technology and community health workers as powerful forces for the early detection and referral of children in need of life saving surgical care. In Turkana, Kenya, she is mobilizing women leaders to tackle the persistently elevated maternal mortality that is disproportionately affecting adolescent girls. These activities are key to the global conversations on health leadership as a mechanism for improved health, social cohesion, and inclusive economic development.She is Founding Director of the Surgical Systems Research Group based in Kisumu, Kenya. She is committed to global health equity and improving access to surgical care as a pathway to rapidly achieving Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. She is committed to youth in Africa and recently launched leadership training bootcamps for young girls aspiring to be leaders in health, technology, and science. She was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2017. She successfully led a Wellcome Trust funded integrated community and health systems based COVID -19 health intervention in Siaya, Kenya which resulted in significant reductions in COVID-19 related deaths. She is currently leading the establishment of the first pediatric surgical operating room in a refugee camp in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya ( (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35724669/; https://vimeo.com/781809259/b1b118ebf5).
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