Anesthesiologists told to reduce cesarean births

Hyderabad: A 3-day training programme on "Safe Obstetrics" organised for anesthesiologists concluded at GVK EMRI on Sunday. Telangana was the only state in India chosen by WFSA for the training program. The programme was aimed at 'Safe Deliveries and Reduce Mortalities in Child Birth.' It was the fourth and last programme in the series.

Obstetrics is the branch of medicine and surgery concerned with childbirth and midwifery. A lot of mothers develop complications during the pregnancy such as High BP, Bleeding, Infections and some even loose. So, Anesthesiologists, specially trained in Obstetrics i.e handling childbirth are very important. So that many lives can be saved. Safe Obstetrics is all about it.

The programme, designed and conceived by World Federation of Society of Anesthesiology (WFSA), an international federation of independent national professional associations of anesthesiologists based in London, chose Telangana to propagate the safe obstetric anesthesia. Indian anesthesiologists with great difficulty brought this programme to the Telangana state.

The three-day 'Safe Obstetrics' was the fourth in the series in which as many as 55 doctors, anesthesiologists and practicing doctors from across Telangana, Karnataka and Assam participated.

Dr Sunil T Pandya, the project co-coordinator, Dr Kousalya Chakravarthy, the course director, and Dr Raja Narsing Rao, Consultant Anesthesiologist at GVK EMRI, and Regional Faculty at AHA, Dr GV Ramana Rao, Director of GVK EMRI Dr Satyanarayana facilitated the training programme.

The objective of the training was to standardise obstetric anesthesia and critical care practice across the state and reduce maternal mortality, according to Dr Sunil Pandya.

The ISA Hyderabad and Telangana and Association of Obstetric Anesthesiologists, India, collaborated with WFSA and conducted three courses at Hyderabad (Century Hospital), Mahbubnagar (SVSS Medical College) and Ranga Reddy district (Shadan Medical College) earlier, informed Dr Raja Narsing Rao.

Nearly 200 anesthesiologists from Telangana have been trained in these last three programmes. The fourth course was held at GVK EMRI 108 Training Centre, Medchal district, from April 12 to 14, added Dr. Kousalya, who is the first obstetrics anaesthologist, a trained specialist in the country in the year 2007. Today India has just 45 to 50 such highly specialised obstetrics anesthesiologists.

The WFSA is the foremost global alliance of anesthesiologists and through a federation of 135 Member Societies unites anesthesiologists from 145 countries around the world to improve patient care and access to safe anesthesia.

Anesthesiology is the practice of medicine dedicated to the total care of the patient before, during and after surgery. Anesthesiologists are also experts in resuscitation, pain management, and intensive care.

A 11% of the global burden of disease could be treated by surgery. 85% of children in lower income countries are likely to have required surgical treatment by the time they are 15 years old. Around 5 billion people worldwide lack access to affordable surgical and anesthetic care when they need it, most of these are in lower income countries. With more than 230 million major surgeries occurring annually around the world, the stakes are high.

Most of the Anesthesiologists practice in urban areas. The city of Hyderabad has just 680 anesthesiologists. Anesthetics are the medical specialty concerned with the total perioperative care of patients before, during and after surgery. They are the most required specialists. The city with one crore population just has 680 specialists. There is one Anesthesiologist for 1.5 lakh population. Ideally, it should have been one for fifty thousand population, informed Dr Sunil Pandya.