Safe Anaesthesia and Essential Emergency and Critical Care: Shared Foundations for Saving Lives
On 16 October 1846, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, ether was used publicly for the first time to perform surgery without pain. That event, still remembered as “Ether Day,” transformed the course of medicine.
Today, World Anaesthesia Day commemorates that moment while drawing attention to a much more urgent reality. Almost two centuries later, billions of people still lack access to safe anaesthesia and surgery. This is not only a surgical issue. It is also a matter of patient safety and critical care.
“Safe anaesthesia is a cornerstone of safe surgery and emergency care. Yet too many patients face the risks of surgery without the protection they deserve”
A Global Access Gap
According to the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (2015), 5 billion people worldwide do not have access to safe surgery and anaesthesia when they need it.
Workforce shortages remain one of the most critical challenges. WFSA’s Global Workforce Survey shows large gaps in the availability of trained anaesthesia providers in low income settings. Many surgical procedures are carried out by non specialist staff or under conditions where key skills, equipment, or monitoring are limited.
The problem is not confined to operating theatres. The same shortages and resource constraints are often present across hospital wards, leaving critically ill patients without timely, life saving care.
Anaesthesia and Critical Care: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Safe anaesthesia depends on the ability to secure an airway, support breathing and oxygenation, maintain circulation, monitor vital signs and act quickly when danger signs appear.
These same functions lie at the heart of Essential Emergency and Critical Care (EECC). EECC is a set of low cost, high impact actions and resources that every hospital should be able to provide for every critically ill patient in every ward.
EECC ensures that these basics are delivered consistently, not only in operating rooms but wherever patients deteriorate. It strengthens the infrastructure, training, and systems that support safe anaesthetic practice, particularly in resource constrained settings where anaesthetists are few.
A Systems Approach
Anaesthesia and EECC highlight the same truth: saving lives depends on getting the basics right, reliably and everywhere.
When hospitals have reliable oxygen, pulse oximetry and vital signs monitoring, airway equipment, and trained health workers who can act fast, they can keep patients alive. This applies to surgery, emergencies, and routine hospital care alike.
In Tanzania, EECC training and tools are being scaled nationally to make these basics standard across health facilities. By embedding EECC, hospitals strengthen their capacity for both safe anaesthetic care and emergency response.
A Call for Action on World Anaesthesia Day
As countries work towards Universal Health Coverage, access to anaesthesia and EECC should be recognised as complementary foundations of safe and equitable hospital care.
Investing in the basics - oxygen, monitoring, trained teams and system readiness - does not only make surgery safer. It saves lives across the continuum of emergency and critical care.
Everyone, wherever they receive care, should be able to trust that the essentials of anaesthesia and emergency care will be in place to keep them safe.
On World Anaesthesia Day, we celebrate how far medicine has come and recommit to closing the gaps that still cost lives. No patient should die for lack of the basics.