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Indian Society of Anesthesiologists

Indian Society of Anesthesiologists (ISA) South Asian Confederation of Anaesthesiologists was formed in the year 1991, being the brain child of Prof. Kester Brown, the then Secretary of the World Federation of Anaesthesiologists. He suggested to the attending delegates of the South Asian Region at Seoul, South Korea during the Asian Australasian Congress, to form a confederation like that of AASIAN countries and conduct periodic meetings. The first President of the SACA namely, Prof.Vasumathi Divekar of Mumbai was elected to lead the members of the South Asian Region namely Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, SriLanka, Nepal, Maldives and Bhutan.

The decision to hold the first SACA meet was decided and it was allotted to Bangladesh. The first SACA was successfully conducted at Dakha in 1993 under the leadership of Prof. Samad Choudry the father figure of Bangladesh anaesthesia society.

The first SACA flag was designed after consulting the other SACA member countries, which showed the International boundaries of all the SAARC countries. The aims and objectives of formation of SACA are:

To promote closer ties among the South Asian National Societies
To organize regular meeting with SAARC country Anaesthesiologists to exchange views, information and experiences.
To help to elevate the standards of training and practice of Anaesthesiology and critical care in South Asian countries.
To set standards of safety in both training and equipment
To encourage exchange of expertise.
For exchange of technical know-how and to get the industries to exhibit their products in neighboring countries.

These type of congregations are always a great inspiration to our junior collegues and contribute enormously to the uplift of Anaesthesia speciality. SACA congress is being organized once in two years in rotation, SACA gives a sense of belonging and participation to the Anaesthesiologists of our region. Exchange of global trends and recent advancements are propogated this way, which helps us in our stride to provide better care to our patients.

The 2nd SACA congress was conducted in a grand manner at Colombo in Sri Lanka in 1995 under the leadership of Prof.Deepti Attygalle. The 3rd SACA was conducted with all the enthusiasm by Prof. Tipu Sultan at Karachi in Pakistan. That gave an opportunity for the Indian delegate anaesthesia to visit Pakistan and enjoy the hospitality of Pakistan friends.

The next in rotation to conduct the 4th SACA congress was for Nepal. Since the Nepal society expressed their inability to organize to organize the SACA it was then India was given the responsibility to hold the 4th SACA congress and Dr K. Balakrishnan was chosen as the President to organize 4th SACA conference.

The Indian Society of Anaesthesiology members at their annual general body meeting objected to the SACA flag showing KASHMIR as part of Pakistan. This matter was amicably settled after the elected SACA President contacted and got the approval of acceptance from all member countries to change the flag. Again Prof.Kester Brown then the President of WFSA came forward and suggested to have regional boundary instead of international boundaries which was being objected in the SACA flag. This was accepted by all including the members of ISA.