Committee: 

Paul Howell (United Kingdom) – Chair

Diallo Abdoulaye (Mali)

Izdiad Badran (Jordan)

Anselmo Garza Hinojosa (Mexico)

Medge Owen (United States)

Salwa al Saud (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia)

Katsuo Terui (Japan)

Maria Conception Cruz (Philippines)

Krzystof Kuczkowski (United States)

Liaison Officer to Executive Committee:

Alfredo Cattaneo (Argentina)

Over the past four years, the S/C Chair (Paul
Howell) has developed and strengthened important links with other relevant
organisations including the Obstetric Anaesthetists’ Association (OAA) and the Association
of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland (AAGBI), and the WFSA has joined
forces with them on a number of projects:

Obstetric Anaesthesia for Developing Countries
Textbook:

In
collaboration with the WFSA Publications Committee, the OAA and the International
Relations Committee of the AAGBI, an exciting new handbook of obstetric
anaesthesia specifically targeted at anaesthetic providers in resource-poor
areas has been completed. Already in hardcopy, it is hoped to make it available
in electronic format at some point in the future.

Obstetric
Anaesthesia Resource Discs:

Created thanks to a generous grant from Baxter,
and terrific cooperation from Elsevier, publishers of the International Journal
of Obstetric Anesthesia (IJOA), and the Obstetric Anaesthetists’ Association, our
obstetric anaesthesia resource discs have been a big hit, and almost 3000 have
now been distributed in over 50 countries, including a large number to Kenya
(along with the excellent Clyburn textbook of obstetric anaesthesia above).

These CDs include a variety of different useful tools
including a webcast of the 2008 OAA Three Day Course with slides and abstract
book, video of how spinals work, and back copies of IJOA, Update in Anaesthesia
and Tutorials of the Week. 

(see: https://anaesthesiologists.org/news/obstetric-anaesthesia-teaching-cd-roms-2010)

SAFE
Obstetric Anaesthesia Training Course

The
Safer Anaesthesia From Education (SAFE) Obstetric Anaesthesia Training course
is a newly developed educational intervention aimed to raise the standard of
practice of obstetric anaesthesia amongst anaesthetists (both medical and
non-medical) in low economically resourced countries.

This
exciting new project is a joint venture between the AAGBI, the WFSA and the
World Health Organisation (WHO), and was devised by Dr Kate Grady and other
members of the International Relations Committee of the AAGBI in 2011.

The
course is based on methods used in the highly successful “LSS EOC & NC”
course which is currently used by the Royal College of Obstetricians and
Gynaecologists for training obstetricians around the world, and incorporates an integrated “Training of the Trainers” course to
provide onward sustainability

The
SAFE Obstetric Anaesthesia course was piloted in Uganda in June / July 2011,
where it was very well received, and the WFSA has committed to funding the running of the
course in Bangladesh, where it will be run in conjunction with the WHO and the Director
General of Maternal and Child Health.

Links
with FIGO

We are also building links with our obstetric
colleagues at FIGO (the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics),
and in 2009 Paul Howell (S/C Chair) and David Wilkinson (WFSA Hon Treasurer) had
a useful meeting with Prof Hamid Rushwan, then CEO of FIGO, and Bryan Thomas,
their Administrative Director.

Following this, Paul Howell was invited to join
a round-table panel discussion in a session devoted to the FIGO initiative on
Maternal and Newborn Health (MNH) supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation at the FIGO World Congress in South Africa in 2009, and has been
invited back to speak in the FIGO President’s Session at the next FIGO World
Congress in Rome later this year.

We hope to explore ways of collaborating with FIGO
on projects of mutual interest.

Partnership
for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH)

The WFSA has now become a Partner in the World
Health Organisation Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH),
a multidisciplinary alliance of interested parties who are working to improve
the health of mothers and children worldwide. This will hopefully improve our
international profile and our ability to liaise with like-minded organizations
on joint future projects – all too pressing since it’s now clear that
Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 are far from being met. 

Individual Contributions

Around
the world, individual members of the Obstetric Committee continue to make
significant contributions to the practice of obstetric anaesthesia and
analgesia in their own regions, and beyond.

Special
mention should be made of Dr Medge Owen
who heads Kybele, an organisation that takes multidisciplinary teams into
transitional level countries and shows how obstetric (anaesthetic) care can be
improved through a combination of formal lectures and hands-on practical
tuition.

Recent
publications show that this approach can make a lasting impact, with
sustained changes in practice – an excellent example to us all!

References:       Kopic
D, Sedensky M, Owen M. The impact of a teaching program on obstetric
anesthesia practices in Croatia. Int J
Obstet Anesth 2009; 18: 4-9.

                        Howell
P R.  Supporting the evolution of
obstetric anaesthesia through  outreach
programs  (Editorial) 
Int J Obstet Anesth, 2009; 18:
1-3.

Always an active lecturer, Dr Krzysztof Kuczkowski 
has established a regular International Congress of Obstetric  Anaesthesia and Perinatal Medicine in
Poznan, Poland, and published an obstetric anaesthesia textbook in polish.

Late in 2010, and shortly before the Arab Spring
civil unrest started in Libya, two committee members, Dr Paul Howell and Dr Izdiad
Badran, represented the WFSA at the 4th Libyan Anesthesia & Intensive Care congress in Benghazi. Obstetric anaesthesia featured high on
the program and there was a great deal of vibrant discussion on topical issues,
and CD sets were given to all attendees.

Drs Badran & Howell in Benghazi, Libya 2010