Safe Anaesthesia Worldwide

Tue, Feb 13th 2018 at 8:35 am - 8:35 am

We take anaesthesia for granted in our country but in many poorer parts of the world anaesthesia may not be regularly available because of the lack of electricity and oxygen; this results in much suffering and many deaths.

A portable anaesthetic machine in use.  These can be transported to the most remote areas of the world

Safe Anaesthesia Worldwide

Doctor Roger Eltringham, founder and a director of the charity ‘Safe Anaesthesia Worldwide’, gave club members an awareness of the importance of making suitable anaesthesia available to people in poorer areas of the world.  We take for granted the use of anaesthesia for pain free surgery, but in some countries it is lacking:  with intermittent or no electricity and difficulty in obtaining oxygen cylinders because of expense and poor transport, there may be no anaesthesia for emergency surgery.  Doctor Eltringham gave the example of a maternity ward in a Ugandan hospital where five emergency caesarean sections were needed one night but the anaesthetic machine was not working.  Five babies died and their mothers suffered extreme pain and internal damage which blighted the rest of their lives.

Many such hospitals had been donated expensive anaesthetic equipment which remained unused because of the unreliable supply of electricity and oxygen.  This situation was the key stimulus in the establishment of the charity in 2012.  Volunteers were appointed as trustees and worked in consultation with local hospital staff to provide equipment appropriate to their needs.  An oxygen concentrator, which removes nitrogen from air, was developed as well as a mechanical ventilator to inflate the lungs and a vaporiser to turn liquid anaesthetic into gas.  Put together these three components make the ‘Glostavent’, an anaesthetic machine that can be taken to the more remote areas of the globe.  As well as instructing staff on the use of the machine the charity, based in Marden, Kent, sends engineers abroad to service the machines.

In each of the past five years the charity has received awards for innovation, such as the ‘suitcase’ anaesthetic machine used for mother and babies in difficulty or for victims in areas of disaster or war.  Twenty such machines were sent to the besieged city of Homs in Syria.  The latest research and challenge for 2018 is the refinement of the ‘Solex’ machine used to convert sunlight into electricity for storage in batteries and to store oxygen via a robust oxygen concentrator.

To find out more see:www.safe4all.org.uk

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