The anesthesia human resources crisis in Canada

Human resources are essential to the safe and effective functioning of any health care system. Pressure on the health care workforce is of active global concern. There appears to be an anesthesia service delivery crisis in Canada. Recent media headlines have featured vacant physician anesthesiologis...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Canadian journal of anesthesia 2024-12, Vol.71 (12), p.1612-1626
Main Authors: Leir, Sarah A, Law, Tyler J, Bould, M Dylan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anesthesia
Anesthesia - methods
Anesthesiologists
Anesthesiology - education
Canada
Delivery of Health Care - organization & administration
Foreign Medical Graduates
Health Workforce - statistics & numerical data
Human resources
Humans
Medical personnel
Workforce
Workforce - statistics & numerical data
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Summary:Human resources are essential to the safe and effective functioning of any health care system. Pressure on the health care workforce is of active global concern. There appears to be an anesthesia service delivery crisis in Canada. Recent media headlines have featured vacant physician anesthesiologist positions, closure of maternity units, and postponement of elective surgeries because of a shortage of anesthesiologists. This shortage is most serious in rural and remote communities. This has prompted the Canadian Anesthesiologists' Society to publish a position statement on "Strategies to Address the Surgical Backlog and Health Human Resource Issues in Anesthesia."In this article, we discuss the composition and organization of the anesthesia workforce in Canada. We compare the Canadian anesthesia workforce to other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries. We contend that the current anesthesia provision model in Canada is not meeting population needs and outline potential solutions to the anesthesia human resources crisis. These include increasing the numbers of anesthesiologists in training, encouraging international medical graduates to migrate to Canada, and various different approaches to task shifting and task sharing.
ISSN:0832-610X
1496-8975
1496-8975
DOI:10.1007/s12630-024-02869-0