Not a “first world problem”—Care of the anesthetist in East and Southern Africa

Burnout and related concepts such as resilience, wellness, and taking care of healthcare professionals have become increasingly prevalent in the medical literature. Most of the work in this area comes from high-income countries, with the remainder from upper-middle-income countries, and very little from lower-middle-income or low-income countries. Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly poorly represented in this body of literature. Anglo-American concepts are often applied to different jurisdictions without consideration of cultural and societal differences. However, anesthesia providers in this region have unique challenges, with both the highest burden of “surgical” disease in the world and the least resources, both in terms of human resources for health and in terms of essential drugs and equipment. The effect of burnout on healthcare systems is also likely to be very different with the current human resources for the health crisis in East and Central Africa. According to the Joint Learning Initiative Managing for Performance framework, the three essential factors for building a workforce to effectively support a healthcare system are coverage, competence, and motivation. Current efforts to build capacity in anesthesia in East and Southern Africa focus largely on coverage and competence, but neglect motivation at the risk of failing to support a sustainable workforce. In this paper, we include a review of the relevant literature, as well as draw from personal experience living and working in East and Southern Africa, to describe the unique issues surrounding burnout, resilience, and wellness in this region.