Search

The article explores the role of anaesthesia in global health and highlights key initiatives such as the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery and the National Surgical, obstetric and Anaesthesia Plans (NSOAP). Recognizing the global disparities in anaesthesia education, the article mentions the varying standards of training for anaesthesia providers worldwide as well as the problem of low status of providers. The article underscores a shift in focus from traditional aid models to capacity-building approaches, risks associated with indiscriminate donations of tools and technology to low and middle-income countries, as well as both positive and negative aspects of investing in education and training programs. Furthermore, the article calls for the anaesthesia community to continue to provide decision makers with evidence to support investment in anaesthesia services.

Background: There is a large global deficit of anesthesia providers. In 2016, the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA) conducted a survey to count the number of anesthesia providers worldwide. Much work has taken place since then to strengthen the anesthesia health workforce. This study updates the global count of anesthesia providers., Methods: Between 2021 and 2023, an electronic survey was sent to national professional societies of physician anesthesia providers (PAPs), nurse anesthetists, and other nonphysician anesthesia providers (NPAPs). Data included number of providers and trainees, proportion of females, and limited intensive care unit (ICU) capacity data. Descriptive statistics were calculated by country, World Bank income group, and World Health Organization (WHO) region. Provider density is reported as the number of providers per 100,000 population., Results: Responses were obtained for 172 of 193 United Nations (UN) member countries. The global provider density was 8.8 (PAP 6.6 NPAP 2.3). Seventy-six countries had a PAP density <5, whereas 66 countries had a total provider density <5. PAP density increased everywhere except for high- and low-income countries and the African region., Conclusions: The overall size of the global anesthesia workforce has increased over time, although some countries have experienced a decrease. Population growth and differences in which provider types that are counted can have an important impact on provider density. More work is needed to define appropriate metrics for measuring changes in density, to describe anesthesia cadres, and to improve workforce data collection processes. Effort to scale up anesthesia provider training must urgently continue., Competing Interests: Conflicts of Interest: See Disclosures at the end of the article., (Copyright © 2024 International Anesthesia Research Society.)

Background: Indicators to evaluate progress towards timely access to safe surgical, anaesthesia, and obstetric (SAO) care were proposed in 2015 by the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery. These aimed to capture access to surgery, surgical workforce, surgical volume, perioperative mortality rate, and catastrophic and impoverishing financial consequences of surgery. Despite being rapidly taken up by practitioners, data points from which to derive the indicators were not defined, limiting comparability across time or settings. We convened global experts to evaluate and explicitly define-for the first time-the indicators to improve comparability and support achievement of 2030 goals to improve access to safe affordable surgical and anaesthesia care globally., Methods and Findings: The Utstein process for developing and reporting guidelines through a consensus building process was followed. In-person discussions at a 2-day meeting were followed by an iterative process conducted by email and virtual group meetings until consensus was reached. The meeting was held between June 16 to 18, 2019; discussions continued until August 2020. Participants consisted of experts in surgery, anaesthesia, and obstetric care, data science, and health indicators from high-, middle-, and low-income countries. Considering each of the 6 indicators in turn, we refined overarching descriptions and agreed upon data points needed for construction of each indicator at current time (basic data points), and as each evolves over 2 to 5 (intermediate) and >5 year (full) time frames. We removed one of the original 6 indicators (one of 2 financial risk protection indicators was eliminated) and refined descriptions and defined data points required to construct the 5 remaining indicators: geospatial access, workforce, surgical volume, perioperative mortality, and catastrophic expenditure. A strength of the process was the number of people from global institutes and multilateral agencies involved in the collection and reporting of global health metrics; a limitation was the limited number of participants from low- or middle-income countries-who only made up 21% of the total attendees., Conclusions: To track global progress towards timely access to quality SAO care, these indicators-at the basic level-should be implemented universally as soon as possible. Intermediate and full indicator sets should be achieved by all countries over time. Meanwhile, these evolutions can assist in the short term in developing national surgical plans and collecting more detailed data for research studies., Competing Interests: I have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: Tore Laerdal is Executive Director of the Laerdal Foundation, which provided financial support for the meeting. Tore provided practical support for the meeting and read and approved the manuscript, but did not input into the consensus process or conclusions.