Building a national hernia registry in South Africa: initial ventral hernia repair results from a diverse healthcare sector

Purpose The purpose of this paper was to introduce a new registry in a developing country by describing the demographics, management and 30-day outcomes of patients undergoing ventral hernia repair in the public and private healthcare sectors of South Africa. Methods This study was a retrospective review of a prospectively maintained hernia registry from the 1st of February 2019 to 29th of February 2020. Results 353 ventral hernia repair cases were recorded of which 47% were incisional hernias and the remainder were primary hernias. The median age was 54 years with even distribution of males and females. Half of the patients were obese with a median BMI of 31 kg/m 2 . The private sector performed 190 cases (54%) and the public sector 163 cases (46%). The public sector had more current smokers undergoing elective repairs, 28% vs 15%, p = 0.01 and performed more emergency repair cases, 21% vs 8%, p