Mr Anthony Wall

Operations Manager Policy, Safety and Quality Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists

Building specialist anaesthesia and pain medicine capability in PNG – A joint venture between Rotary Central Melbourne and ANZCA

Papua New Guinea, Australia’s nearest neighbour, is a culturally and linguistically diverse nation with significant healthcare needs. With one of the world’s highest maternal mortality rates, PNG suffers from a critical shortage of human resources for health, with around 5 doctors per 100,000 population (compared with well over 300 per 100,000 in Australia).

Essential Pain Management is a short, easily deliverable and cost-effective training program designed to improve pain management developed by two Australian and New Zealand anaesthetists. It provides a systematic approach for managing patients in pain and also a system for teaching others about pain management and since being trialled in PNG in 2010 has been taught in over 50 countries around the world.

This presentation will outline the background to a proposed joint vocational teaching project between Rotary and the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists to build health workforce capabilities in anaesthesia and pain management in PNG.

Anthony has worked for 25 years in marketing, policy and research roles within the Australian healthcare system. With tertiary qualifications in psychology and postgraduate studies in project design, evaluation and statistics, Anthony commenced his career in private sector healthcare consulting firms and for the past decade has worked in government agencies and public sector organisations including Rural Health Workforce Australia and the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services.

With a particular interest in global, rural and Indigenous health issues, Anthony has served as chief investigator on numerous studies examining health workforce maldistribution including a federally-funded national study into the retention of allied health professionals in rural and remote Australia. Anthony has published more than a dozen conference papers on rural health workforce issues. In his role at ANZCA Anthony works closely with the college’s Overseas Aid Committee and is a member of the joint ANZCA and World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists Essential Pain Management steering committee.