MULTAN: Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi Institute of Cardiology Executive Director Dr Rana Altaf has said the country is facing an acute shortage of anaesthesiologists and there is a need for preparing more specialists in anaesthesia.

A press release issued here on Saturday quoted him as saying the World Anaesthesia Day on Oct 16 commemorated the first successful administration of anaesthesia to a human being in 1846 at Massachusetts General Hospital, the US by Dr William Morton.

He further said the shortage of staff, maintaining quality and safety during administering of anaesthesia, lackof monitoring equipment, and above all meeting standards of healthcare commission were causing serious challenges to providing services to patients.

He said anaesthesia specialisation had come a long way from open ether technique to sophisticated computerassisted technology.

The anaesthetic mortality rate, which was one out of 10,000 people in 1960 had been reduced to 100,000.

He said in today`s modern healthcare system, an anaesthetist takes charge of a patient before an operation starts as well as optimisation, preparation, anaesthetic management, post-operative care.

Dr Altaf said the field was no more a surgical subspecialty but a major discipline without which a hospital could not function ef fectively.