WFSA’s 2025 Annual Theme is focusing on the indispensable role of anaesthesiologists in health emergency and critical care settings
Intensive & Critical Care Medicine (ICCM) Committee Chair, Sheila Myatra, and WFSA’s Head of Advocacy and Communications, Francis Peel, discuss why this matters.
Background to Health Emergencies
In global health terms, we live in turbulent times. The UN estimates there are approximately 120 armed conflicts ongoing around the world. In 2024, 219 extreme weather events occurred. Health modellers predict a 1 in 4 chance of another global pandemic, similar to COVID-19, before 2033.
Health emergencies caused by these man-made and natural disasters ruin million of lives, damage whole communities and overrun health systems across the globe. However, health emergencies are not limited to large-scale events; they are at the very core of everyday healthcare provision. At hospitals and clinics in every corner of the world patients present with medical, surgical, and obstetric emergencies, including injuries, sepsis, heart attacks, strokes, asthma, and acute complications of pregnancy.
Analysis from the WHO shows that over half of deaths and more than a third of disabilities in low- and middle-income countries could be addressed by the implementation of effective emergency and critical care.
What is Anaesthesiology’s Role in Health Emergencies?
Anaesthesiologists are often at the forefront of emergency responses, providing lifesaving treatments in pre-hospital, emergency departments and disaster settings including airway protection and respiratory support, haemodynamic stability and pain management. With their multifaceted skill sets including but not limited to facilitating tracheal intubation, mechanical ventilation support, shock management using fluids and vasoactive drugs, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, providing sedation/anaesthesia for emergency procedure and pain management, anaesthesiologists are pivotal in managing health emergencies
This was never more evident than during the COVID-19 pandemic. Analysis showed that the effectiveness of a health system’s response was often attributed to whether that country had enough anaesthesiologists and whether they had sufficient access to the right equipment. Beyond the now constant shadow of the next global pandemic, anaesthesia remains ubiquitous in responding to other health emergencies.
Why focus WFSA’s Annual Theme on Health Emergencies?
How to respond to and prepare for health emergencies—both large and small—is an increasingly significant consideration for decision-makers in every health system in the world.
To ensure services can effectively respond to current and future health emergencies, WFSA believes that anaesthesiologists must be at the centre of these decisions.
WFSA’s annual theme aims to facilitate informed discussions and raise awareness of issues central to the work of anaesthesiologists and the patients they serve. Over the next year, WFSA will bring together practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and thought leaders to identify ways to strengthen anaesthesiology in health emergency settings.
With the support of WFSA’s 12 specialist committees, we will address anaesthesiology’s role in wide range of health emergency topics. Whilst we cannot list all of them here, key areas include:
Preparedness and Response Policies
For global and national health systems caught flat-footed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the WHO has focused on implementing policies to enhance global preparedness and response to health emergencies. Key developments include:
- Strengthening National Emergency Preparedness – Working with Member States to bolster their operational readiness for emergencies, supporting countries in meeting their International Health Regulations (IHR) commitments to build capacity.
- Emergency, Critical, and Operative Services (ECO) Implementation Plan – The WHO is working with Member States and non-state actors like WFSA to strengthen healthcare systems by ensuring timely access to life-saving surgical, anaesthesia, and emergency care. This implementation plan focuses on capacity building, workforce development, and integrating essential services into national health strategies, particularly in low-resource settings. By improving infrastructure, training, and policies, the plan enhances patient outcomes and reduces mortality from critical conditions worldwide.
Through its engagement with the World Health Assembly and WHO’s regional committee meetings, WFSA has long argued that anaesthesiology is central to preparedness and response. How can we embed anaesthesiologists into decision-making structures to help build the anaesthesia services needed for health emergencies?
CPR and Resuscitation
Anaesthesiologists are leaders in advanced airway management, ensuring optimal oxygenation and ventilation during resuscitation. WFSA actively supports World Restart a Heart (WRAH) Day, promoting global awareness of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and advocating for improved resuscitation training. We seek to work with partners to provide educational resources, emphasising the critical role of anaesthesiologists in CPR leadership. Additionally, WFSA Member Societies help organise training events, workshops, and social media campaigns to increase public and professional engagement in life-saving resuscitation efforts worldwide.
Essential Emergency and Critical Care
Advocating for safe anaesthesia and perioperative care in resource-limited settings is central to WFSA’s work. WFSA’s short-course training programmes, capacity-building initiatives, and policy support strengthen emergency and critical care systems globally. Through collaboration with partners such as WHO, WFSA promotes standardised protocols and access to essential medications, equipment, and skilled personnel to improve patient outcomes in emergencies. This discussion has already started – watch the Essential Emergency and Critical Care webinar held on
Themes to be Developed on Common Health Emergencies Requiring Anaesthesia Intervention
- Trauma & Surgical Emergencies
- Neurological Emergencies
- Cardiac and Respiratory emergencies
- Obstetric and Paediatric Emergencies
- Disaster planning guidelines
- Pain management protocols
- Climate change and health emergencies
Call to Action
Throughout 2025, WFSA will call on governments, healthcare institutions, and professional societies to prioritise anaesthesia services in their health emergency strategies. Strengthening this essential component of healthcare will save lives and ensure more resilient health systems in the face of future crises.
This is the bit where we turn to you and ask What are we missing? What component of Health Emergencies do we need to talk about? Over the next 10 months we want to hear your perspectives, insights and expertise.
It’s going to be a fascinating debate and I look forward to having it with you.
