SPANZA Environmental Article Series
Did you know that paediatric anaesthesia is one of the four subspecialty areas within anaesthesia with barriers to sustainable practice? We use more gas inductions, high fresh gas flows and N2O than in other areas of practice. But it is easy to reduce our impact by;
• Using circle circuits rather than T-pieces.
• Reducing fresh gas flows.
• Only using N2O for induction and then turning it off, or not using it at all.
• Using TIVA for induction, and certainly for maintenance.
As an example, our members have been able to use circles down to 3kg, induction fresh gas flows at 2 to 3 L/min for all patients, and removing N2O from gas inductions. This reduces N2O use significantly with no change in safety or comfort for the patient or anaesthetist. *(A photo of a baby having an induction with a circle system and low gas flows would be amazing here).
Please CLICK HERE to see more information, references and some interesting graphs/tables/figures.
We will be bringing you sustainability information and tips and tricks in our future newsletters.
