Anaesthetic monitoring

Close monitoring of patients under anaesthesia is a key part of surgical safety. In the UK, there are a raft of possible measures - everyone gets ECG, oxygen level and blood pressure monitoring, and those undergoing major operations can have all sorts of lines and probes inserted to make surgery safer.

On arrival here, I learnt the monitoring was provided by the anaesthetist resting their stethoscope on the chest and a finger on the pulse - clearly not as accurate as a fancy machine. Fortunately, we brought three pulse oximeters out with us. They were provided by Lifebox and funded by Smiletrain and fundraising by Charlotte. For £160 they provide continuous monitoring of the patient's oxygen levels and heart rate. They have alarms which provide immediate warning of a patient's condition deteriorating.

I did not break them out for the first week here, instead getting to know the theatre team and set up so I'd know how best to distribute them. In fact, the team is motivated and had been missing good quality monitoring. There had been one death in the recovery area the week before I arrived, which possibly could have been averted by better monitoring. In the week before we used the use oximeters, I had been doing a major abdominal case and had to tell the anaesthetist the patient wasn't getting enough oxygen because their blood was too dark!

So, the team here is pretty excited by the monitors and it is making a big difference on a day to day basis. Today I was operating and the patient had an unexpected cardiac arrest - the monitor picked it up straight away and I'm sure early CPR played a big part in us being able to resuscitate him successfully. He is only 38, and, while seriously ill, I would like to think he has a fighting chance of survival. Thank you to everyone who donated money for the monitors - once these ones are bedded in and being well used, we should be getting some more sent down to stock up the recovery area.