The preparedness of preoperative anesthesia equipment’s and monitors for pediatric patients

In resource-limited settings, providing anaesthesia services to paediatric patients at the operation theatre needs to be considered and optimal utilization of national resources available for the provision of services should be undertaken. Therefore, optimal perioperative care of infants and children requires the availability of monitors and contemporary equipment designed specifically for this purpose. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to determine the practice of preoperative anaesthesia equipment and monitor preparation for paediatric patients. METHOD: A cross-sectional study was employed among 150 consecutively selected paediatrics from April to June 2020. Data were collected by semi-structured questionnaire. Data entry and analysis were done using Epi Data and Stata version 14.0. Descriptive statistics were employed. RESULT: A total of 150 patients who undergo surgery under anaesthesia were observed in surgical and ophthalmic operation rooms. From those procedures, only stethoscope and small-sized syringes achieved 100% of the standards. But paediatric stylet, paediatric defibrillator and paediatric folly catheter had achieved 0%. The remaining were between 10 and 97% according to standards. CONCLUSION: Even though some paediatric anaesthesia equipments and monitoring preparation have fulfilled the standards, this study showed practice gaps in majority of cases in the preparation of appropriately sized paediatric equipments and monitors.