So far there have been many studies on human resource for health, but there is a dearth of research on anesthesia-resuscitation workforce. This study describes the anesthesia-resuscitation workforce situation and its impact on Dak Lak public hospitals' surgical operation according to technical assignment. This is a cross-sectional study using mixed methods with data collected from 10 in-depth interviews of provincial health department's and hospitals' leaders, and 1 group discussion with anesthesia-resuscitation staff as well as retrospective data on anesthesiaresuscitation workforce, and surveying all 61 public hospitals' leaders and all anesthesia-resuscitation staff working for 16 hospitals. The results showed that anesthesia-resuscitation staff increased slowly from 2009 to 2011, but increased significantly in 2012 (1.7 times compared with that in 2009) doctors specialized in anesthesia-resuscitation increased the most (1.3 times). However, the province still needs to recruit 53 anesthesia-resuscitation staff, including 17 doctors specialized in anesthesia-resuscitation. Due to lack of anesthesia-resuscitation staff, especially doctors so many district hospitals could not implement all 18 surgical operations that they should do notably there are 5 hosptitals implementing only 5-9 techniques. To improve the situation of Dak Lak's Health Department and the hospitals should have priority measures to encourage recruitment, training and commitment in the field of anesthesia-resuscitation.