WFSA advises PAHO’s 63rd Directing Council that the Americas cannot be prepared for emergencies or build resilient health systems without a staffed, equipped anaesthesia workforce.
As a non-State actor, WFSA made two statements to PAHO’s 63rd Directing Council (78th Session of the Regional Committee of WHO for the Americas) in Washington, D.C. (28 September–2 October 2026). WFSA’s delegation was led by Dr Fredy Ariza, President of the Colombian Society of Anaesthesiology and Resuscitation (S.C.A.R.E.), and Dr Andrea Martinez of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
On item 4.2, WFSA welcomed PAHO’s new Strategy for Strengthening Health Emergency and Risk Management for Health Security 2026–2031, stressing that surge capacity depends on staffed, equipped anaesthesia services and calling for the anaesthesia workforce to be written into emergency plans and emergency medical team standards.
On item 8.8 C, the midterm review of the Strategy for Building Resilient Health Systems and Post-COVID-19 Pandemic Recovery, WFSA drew on pandemic lessons to call for anaesthesia in workforce planning, health information systems, financing and the Resilient Hospitals Initiative.
Together, the statements show that preparedness and universal health rest on the same foundation: a trained, equipped anaesthesia workforce, in line with PAHO’s Strategy for Integrated Emergency, Critical and Operative Care 2025–2030.
Agenda Item 4.2: Strategy for Strengthening Health Emergency and Risk Management for Health Security 2026–2031 (CD63/5)
The World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA) represents over 550,000 anaesthesiologists in 156 countries, including 23 Member Societies across the PAHO region.
The WFSA welcomes this strategy and its recognition that surge capacity and continuity of essential services depend on a trained, equipped health workforce.
No health system can be called resilient without functioning, staffed anaesthesia services.
Anaesthesiologists work across virtually every emergency pathway: airway management and resuscitation, oxygen therapy and mechanical ventilation, sepsis recognition and management, trauma and surgical care, obstetric emergencies, pain management, and critical care.
This cross-cutting role makes anaesthesia workforce capacity a determinant of whether surge capacity is real or merely theoretical. Yet chronic and acute anaesthesia workforce shortages across the Region already constrain everyday service delivery — shortages that become critical failure points the moment an emergency multiplies demand.
We therefore urge Member States to explicitly include anaesthesia workforce capacity — numbers, distribution, equipment and consumables — within national health emergency and pandemic response planning, and within emergency medical team standards referenced in this strategy.
Preparedness also requires team-focused, competency-based specialist training that keeps multidisciplinary teams functioning together under surge conditions, of the kind WFSA’s member societies deliver across the Americas.
We urge Member States to engage directly with their national anaesthesiology societies in designing and implementing these strategic lines of action: they hold the clinical and training expertise this strategy depends on for successful, sustained implementation.
Agenda Item 8.8 C: Strategy for Building Resilient Health Systems and Post-COVID-19 Pandemic Recovery – Midterm Review (CD63/INF/8.C)
The World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA) represents over 550.000 anesthesiologists in 156 countries, including 23 Member Societies across the PAHO region.
COVID-19 showed that resilient health systems depend on anaesthesiologists. Anaesthesia underpins emergency obstetric care, trauma, cancer-treatment and critical care, which are services a resilient system must maintain through any shock. Without investment in anaesthesia, the one third of people in the Region reporting unmet health needs cannot be reached.
The WFSA urges Member States to:
- Include the anaesthesia workforce in human resources for health planning, expanding training and retention beyond capital cities.
- Add surgical and anaesthesia indicators to national health information systems: workforce density, timely access to surgery and perioperative mortality.
- Integrate anaesthesia and surgical care into national health policies and financing, in line with PAHO’s Strategy on Integrated Emergency, Critical, and Operative Care 2025–2030.
- Ensure the Resilient Hospitals Initiative includes safe anaesthesia equipment, reliable oxygen, implementation of patient blood management programs and essential anaesthesia and pain medicines.
WFSA and our member societies stand ready to support PAHO and Member States.
