Public

Each year in New Zealand approximately 250,000 surgical procedures are carried out which involve anaesthesia to make a patient unconscious and painfree during their operation. Approximately 65 percent of women will come into contact with an anaesthetist during childbirth.

Mankind has been carrying out surgical operations for many hundreds of years. But effective anaesthesia is a recent discovery and the sophisticated anaesthesia practised today is the culmination of many discoveries and science over the past 160 years.

Anaesthetists are qualified specialist doctors who administer several different types of anaesthetic techniques depending on patient and surgical needs, from a general anaesthetic where the patient is put into a state of unconsciousness throughout an operation, to a local anaesthetic which causes numbness only at the site of surgery.

Anaesthetists spend seven years training to obtain their medical degree and registration and a further five – seven years working in a hospital, gaining experience  and completing post-graduate exams before qualifying as a specialist anaesthetist. A specialist anaesthetist is one of the most highly trained doctors in a hospital.

In New Zealand anaesthesia is conducted and managed by a specialist anaesthetist. This ensures the best safety for you as a patient.