THE CHALLENGES REGARDING ANESTHESIA IN RURAL INFANTS

Dr. Mohammad Makbul Hossain*, Dr. Md. Bahauddin Al Mamun and Dr. Sabarin Ahamed

ABSTRACT

Background: Bangladesh, being a developing country, is a big, populous country with wide disparities in health-care standards. While cities have state-of-the-art hospitals staffed by skilled doctors, rural regions, where the majority of the population resides, suffer from a serious lack of resources. Patients and family members were characterized as being irritated, anxious, frustrated, and angry when being treated for newborns. Also, anesthesiologists expressed discomfort, unease, dissatisfaction, and feeling challenged. Objective: To evaluate the challenges regarding anesthesia in rural infants. Method: This cross-sectional study place was carried out at Bangladesh Shishu Hospital & Institute, Bangladesh where data were collected from January 2017 to January 2018. A total of 100 pediatric patients who had mainly elective surgery were included in the study. Sample were collected through purposive sampling as per inclusion criteria. Results: In our study, most of the infants belong to the 2 month-12 months age group and majority were from rural area (60%). Of them, 60% underwent general surgery followed by 15% ENT surgery, 14% cardiac surgery and 11% other surgeries. Regarding intraoperative & postoperative complications where in intraoperative complications, 75% had bradycardia followed by 15% tachycardia, 4% hypotension and 3% dysrrhythmia. Where as in post-operative complications, 28% had prolonged unconsciousness, 18% had restlessness, 15% had pain and 11% had tachycardia. Conclusion: The cornerstones of safe pediatric anesthetic practice include: careful preoperative assessment and optimization of patients, strict adherence to the ideal requirements of pediatric anesthesia and the presence of an experienced senior and dedicated anesthetic team.

Keywords: anesthesia, general surgery, infants.