Equitable access to comprehensive surgical care: the potential of indigenous private philanthropy in low-income settings.

Introduction: Equitable access to surgical care is necessary for improving global health. We report on the performance, financial sustainability, and policy impact of a free-of-cost multispecialty surgical delivery program in Karachi, Pakistan built upon local private philanthropy.

Materials And Methods: We evaluated trends in surgical service delivery, expenditures, and philanthropic donations from Indus Hospital's first 5 years of operation (2007-2012), projected these over the hospital's current expansion phase, compared these to publicly accessible records of other philanthropic hospitals providing surgical care, and documented the government's evolving policies toward this model.