{"id":6050,"date":"2020-12-22T00:00:11","date_gmt":"2020-12-21T23:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.euroespa.com\/?p=6050"},"modified":"2025-03-10T18:23:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T17:23:00","slug":"obituary-dr-anneke-meursing-de-jong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euroespa.com\/obituary-dr-anneke-meursing-de-jong\/","title":{"rendered":"Obituary Dr. Anneke Meursing \u2013 de Jong"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In Memoriam: Dr Anneke Meursing \u2013 de Jong  (1946-2020)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paediatric\nAnaesthetists from all over the world have joined with great sorrow to bid\nfarewell for our colleague and friend \u2013 Anneke Meursing-de Jong. Her\ncontributions were of the utmost importance for the development of our\nspeciality in Europe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anneke\nwas a colleague who offered friendship and ties. She was able to bring us\ntogether for common understanding creating a friendly circle of anaesthesiologists\nengaged in the care of children. Anneke\u00b4s talent for friendship and\ncommunication and her devotion for those who needed support, be that sick\nchildren or less well-off countries, combined with her courage and\norganizational skill, made her succeed with very difficult tasks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anneke\nwas born on 15th<\/sup> May 1946 in Holland. She completed her medical\nschool in Leiden. Anaesthesia was not her first choice; she specialised in\ntropical medicine and went to Uganda. After two years she decided to return to\nLeiden for anaesthesiology training. The Department of Anaesthesiology in\nLeiden did not offer paediatric training for which she went to the Sophia\nChildren\u2019s Hospital in Rotterdam and decided to stay there. Within a few years she\nwas appointed as a chairperson of the department. The beginning was not easy for\nher; fortunately she had already made contact with Doctor Gordon Jackson-Rees;\nrecently retired but never tired. He came over as a Visiting Professor of the\nRotterdam University. Anneke had many contacts and friends all around the world.\nTogether with Jack Rees she managed to create a modern department of paediatric\nanaesthesia, the first high-level teaching centre of the speciality in Holland.\nEurope had two formally organised paediatric\nanaesthesia societies; the French speaking ADARPEF and for the UK the APAGBI,\nboth initiated in the sixties. At that time the APA was a small national\nsociety that could only accept few overseas members but Anneke became a member\n1983. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At\nan APA overseas meeting in Toronto a European club was discussed informally and\nit was agreed that it was needed, but who should do the work to realize such a\nclub? Ursula Bauer from Switzerland pointed at Anneke; “You are young enough, why don\u2019t you take that job upon\nyou?\u201d Back home, Anneke discussed the\npossibility of organising a European Congress of Paediatric Anaesthesia. She\nreceived enthusiastic support from the Chair of the Department; Professor\nWilhelm Erdmann and from\nJackson-Rees. Sparkling with energy, Anneke organised the first European\ncongress of paediatric anaesthesia in Rotterdam August\/September 1986. At\nthat time Europe was not an open region. It was indeed a problem to find and\ncommunicate with colleagues over many borders. Anneke made a tremendous work; 450 colleagues attended the Congress! Two business meetings were organised\nunder the guidance of Gordon Jackson Rees. It was unanimously agreed that\nforming a federation of national societies should be aimed at. Three years later-1989 – Anneke\norganised the second European Congress – again in Rotterdam – the Federation of\nEuropean Associations of Paediatric Anaesthesia (FEAPA) was constituted. Two\nyears thereafter – 1991 – the core team of\nFEAPA succeeded to release the first issue of the journal “Paediatric\nAnaesthesia”. In the following years regular congresses\/symposia were hosted by the FEAPA; in Liverpool (1993),\nParis (1997), Helsinki (2001), Cologne (2005) and Warsaw (2009). It was at\nWarsaw meeting appropriate that FEAPA was\nconverted into a membership driven European Society\nfor Paediatric Anaesthesiology (ESPA). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anneke became deeply involved in the activities of the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiology\n(WFSA). She served first as assistant secretary and then as Secretary\n(1996) and President (2004).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1999, being more and more absorbed by\ninternational activities, Anneke stepped down from the chairmanship of\npaediatric anaesthesia in Rotterdam and was appointed – with support of the\nDutch government – Associate\nProfessor of Anaesthesia at the College of Medicine, Balantyre, Malawi. She\nspent four years in Malawi training and organising. After two robberies and\nwith increasing health problems she retired and came back to the Netherlands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2009 she married Koos de Jong, with whom she found\nlove and happiness till his untimely death in 2015. They had then travelled\nbetween the Netherlands and the Dutch Antilles; her beloved place. Anneke\ncontinued travelling between her two homes till her last days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2010 Anneke experienced serious health problems with joints and spine, which stopped her international activities. Nevertheless, she did her best to keep up with current events. She attended the ESPA Congress in Rotterdam in 2019 where she gave an excellent and well received lecture on history and future perspectives of the European paediatric anaesthesia society. She compared paediatric anaesthesia to the Dutch dykes\u2019 system; “it needs our attention for the simple reason: we can save lives with it”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last year was very difficult for Anneke. Severe pain stopped her activity and tied her to bed. In her last mail to us, she wrote that she experienced \u201cexcruciating pain making me short of breath and affect the feeling and strength in both my arms\u201d. Having no medical option, she passed away quietly in Bonaire, with her dignity preserved and her close friends at her side. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anneke has received many honours. She was made an Honorary Member of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, an Elected Fellow of the Royal College of Anaesthetists in London, an Elected Fellow of the College of Medicine, Anaesthesia, South Africa, and Honorary Member of the Nederlandse Vereniging voor Anesthesiologie, Standing Member of the German Society of Anaesthesiologists, Holder of the Diploma of Honour of the Federation of European Associations of Paediatric Anaesthesia and Honorary Member of the  European Society for Paediatric Anaesthesia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is so important to have a friend in life, warm, helpful, unconditional. Anneke was a unique friend warm, bright, always ready to smile and to help. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

See you, dearest friend, down the road\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marcin Rawicz
Barbro Ekstr\u00f6m-Jodal
Krister Nilsson <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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