The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (2015) recommended the collection of six core indicators to monitor progress in achieving safe anesthesia and surgical care by the year 2030. The second indicator was the number of specialist anesthetic, surgical and obstetric physicians working per 100,000 population. In order to document, current status with respect to global anesthesia provision, the WFSA conducted a workforce survey during 2015-16.
The findings were published in Anesthesia & Analgesia in September 2017, creating an updateable, useful and interactive “World Anaesthesiology Workforce Map” accessible at www.wfsahq.org/workforce-map. Interactive, because, using a mouse to hover over the country Ghana, will result in a pop up square listing this country’s current vital statistics: Physician Anesthesia Providers/100.000 - 0.4; Population - 27,410.000; Physicians - 2.325; Surgeons - 24; Physician Anaesthesia Providers - 110; and Nurse Anesthesia Providers - 640. And useful, because it creates a benchmark for anesthesia planning for...
