KUCHING: Premier Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg emphasised the need to increase the delivery of anaesthesia care to keep up with advancements in surgical and perioperative medicine. He warned that failure to do so could have serious consequences and limit people’s access to safe surgical healthcare.
As of July 2023, there are 1,411 registered specialists in anaesthesiology and critical care in the National Specialist Register of Malaysia, a significant increase from 441 in 2013.
However, the World Association of Anaesthetists recommends having at least five anaesthesiologists per 100,000 residents to achieve a good level of healthcare.
Currently, the ratio of anaesthesiologists to the population in Australia is 1:9000, and in the UK, it is 1:5000. Abang Johari made these remarks during the opening ceremony of the Academy of Medicine of Malaysia (AMM), Malaysian Society of Anaesthesiologists (MSA) & College of Anaesthesiologists (CoA) Annual Scientific Congress here.
He added that the World Federation of Society of Anaesthesiologists recommended a minimum of five physician anaesthesia providers per 100,000 people to achieve reasonable healthcare.
The Medical Development Division of the Ministry of Health estimates a target of 1 to 20,000 specialists in anesthesiology and critical care by 2025 and 1 to 18,000 by 2030.
Therefore, the greatest challenge in the coming decade was to train more specialists to meet the increasing demand for anaesthesia care, he said today.
On a related note, he commended the MSA and CoA for successfully organising the Global Surgery Initiatives (GSI). On March 12 to 19, the MSA and CoA, together with doctors from Subang Jaya Medical Centre, joined hands for the GSI, a first-of-its-kind Public-Private Partnership and corporate social relations initiative that aimed to provide access to safe and affordable surgical and anaesthesia care in underserved areas in Malaysia.
Sri Aman Hospital was chosen, and this was considered one of the first few corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects locally where surgeons, anaesthesiologists, nurses and other allied healthcare professionals from the private sector joined forces to work together with the public health system to identify district hospitals where the need for surgical services had not been completely met.
A total of 37 patients were successfully operated, and the GSI at Sri Aman Hospital was considered a success. In addition, Abang Johari said another global surgery was also carried out at Miri Hospital from July 24 to 28, where a total of 31 surgeries were successfully performed.
He acknowledged that over the years, there had been an increasing number of trained and qualified anaesthesiologists who were able to deliver safe anaesthesia services in the country, extending to remote areas such as interior Sarawak, bringing surgical and perioperative healthcare to all Malaysians.
He attributed this achievement to the tenacity and perseverance of their predecessors in anaesthesia, who had the vision to establish specialty and subspecialty training programmes and formed and engaged professional bodies to develop the specialties to look after their interests and welfare.
