Title
Access and barriers to safe anesthesia in primary health care settings in India
Authors
Manish Kumar Dwivedi1,*, Divas Sinha2 & Pramod Kumar Verma3
Affiliation
1Department of Anaesthesiology, GMC Singrauli, Singrauli, Madhya Pradesh, India; 2Department of Anaesthesiology, Ram Krishna Medical College and Research Centre, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India; 3Department of Community Medicine, Chhindwara Institute of Medical Sciences, Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh, India; *Corresponding author
Manish Kumar Dwivedi - E-mail: drmanishdwivedi007@gmail.com
Divas Sinha- E-mail: sinhadivas@gmail.com
Pramod Kumar Verma - E-mail: pramodkstats76@gmail.com
Article Type
Research Article
Date
Received January 1, 2026; Revised January 31, 2026; Accepted January 31, 2026, Published January 31, 2026
Abstract
The availability of safe anesthesia services is an essential part of necessary surgical care, but it is a pressing issue that has been poorly considered in the primary health care environment in low and middle-income countries. Therefore, it is of interest to assess the availability of safe anesthesia services, their accessibility, and obstacles of these services in primary health care in three Indian states. Between January 2022 and August 2022, 156 primary health centres (PHCs) and 312 anesthesia providers were surveyed by using structured questionnaires and facility assessment tools. Findings showed that not all PHCs had operational anesthesia processes (38.5 percent), and not all PHCs had trained anesthesia staff (62.8 percent). The major obstacles were identified as the lack of proper infrastructure (71.2%), lack of skilled labour (68.6%), unavailability of necessary drugs (54.5%), and lack of standard procedures (47.4%). Rural amenities had much worse access than urban centres (p<0.001).
Keywords
Anesthesia services; primary health care; barriers; access to care; patient safety; rural health; India
Citation
Dwivedi et al. Bioinformation 22(1): 311-315 (2026)
Edited by
Vini Mehta
ISSN
0973-2063
Publisher
License
This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.
