Have you ever had a power cut at work? What did you do?
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Have you ever had a power cut at work? What did you do?
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A surgeon in Scotland had to complete surgery by torchlight when there was a powercut at the PFI hospital he was working at. The Edinburgh Royal Infirmary are now considering legal action against the
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Forums » Open clinical » General clinical » Have you ever had a power cut at work? What did you do?
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Have you ever had a power cut at work? What did you do?
posted at 26/4/2012 11:53 AM BST
on bmj.com
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First: 7/4/2011 Last: 22/5/2013 |
A surgeon in Scotland had to complete surgery by torchlight when there was a powercut at the PFI hospital he was working at. The Edinburgh Royal Infirmary are now considering legal action against the company that runs its non-medical services under the private finance initiative (PFI) after repeated problems that have endangered patients. http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e2949 Have you had any similar experiences? How have you improvised? |
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Re: Have you ever had a power cut at work? What did you do?
posted at 26/4/2012 3:41 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 3045
First: 27/3/2012 Last: 20/5/2013 |
It should never happen to have a powercut, & indeed we should not go for major surgical procedures unless we have had an adequate emergency arrangements to face anytime powercuts! We did not face such unfortunate situations as we are ready to face the powercuts & it is not so difficult with advances in every technologies. |
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Re: Have you ever had a power cut at work? What did you do?
posted at 27/4/2012 3:00 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2049
First: 12/3/2010 Last: 22/5/2013 |
My NHS and non-PFI hospital is equipped with enormous, diesel powered generators, that cut in automatically if the mains go down. They only supply 'essential' services, but that includes theatres, so I'm Alrite Jack! The system is checked regularly and in working hours so we know that it works. A few years ago, there were several unpredicted mains failures in one day, which impressed on me a gap in our systems. Our Anaesthesia machines have battery backup, of course, but only to keep the ventilator going, not the monitoring. When the mains fail and the Hospital generators kick in, they take several seconds to provide power. Meanwhile the monitoring crashes, and like any computer based system takes even longer to re-boot itself. That day, my colleagues and I were without monitoring for a total of many minutes. The solution was clear - a uninterruptible power supply, or UPS. We asked the anaesthetic machine company - certainly! That will be £1200! Oh, bit more than we thought but OK. That's for all our machines, yes? Oh, no, Sir. That's £1200 PER MACHINE!! Stuff you for after sales service, we thought, and went to the Internet. UPS boxes, sufficent for 20 minutes of use, for less than £40 are widely available, so electronics went shopping and they were installed within the week. One of the most effective specification and procurement projects ever! Now we laugh in the face of power failures. For twenty minutes, anyway. John |
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Re: Have you ever had a power cut at work? What did you do?
posted at 28/4/2012 8:33 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1
First: 28/4/2012 Last: 28/4/2012 |
The worst is probably not the light, but theanesthesia... I've seen a TEDtalk that addressed this issue (usual in developing countries). I've found it very interesting: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/erica_frenkel_the_universal_anesthesia_machine.html All the best Miguel Cabral |
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Re: Have you ever had a power cut at work? What did you do?
posted at 29/4/2012 10:53 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2049
First: 12/3/2010 Last: 22/5/2013 |
I think it is an absolute tragedy when we forget our history. The needs of the undeveloped world, where electricity, let alone clean water, are a luxury have been in the minds of anaesthetists for many years, and the EMO (Epstein-Mackintiosh-Oxford) anaesthesia system was devised in the 1950s, exactly for this purpose. The only addition to that system in the machine you link to, miguel, is that of an oxygen concentrator, which, I regret to have to point out, needs electricity to work. It also relies on electronic monitors What a pity that Dr.Frankel or her colegaue who worked in Africa, had no eduation in the History of anaesthesia, and an inflexible frame of mind that demanded a Boyles machine style of anaesthesia deivery system. So, in missionary mode, bringing light into darkness I presnt to you the Epstein-Mackintosh-Oxford anaestehsia system. http://www.nda.ox.ac.uk/wfsa/html/u15/u1506_01.htm It works by the draw-over technique, where the patent's own respiration, or ventilation by the anaesthetist passes the gases through the vapouriser. Designed to work with ether, it was upgraded to use the OMV (Oxford Miniature Vapouriser) as soon as halothane (still the cheapest and safest vapour) was valailble and then penthrane and isoflurane. The OMV was the basis for the UK military medical service anaesthesia system the Triservice, so well, established, but probaly unacceptable across the water as "not invented here". See the excellent Sheffield Dept.of Anaesthesia museum website: http://soa.group.shef.ac.uk/museum/index_sheets/vaporisers.html An anaestehtic education, or any education is incomplete without some history. John |
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Re: Have you ever had a power cut at work? What did you do?
posted at 13/5/2012 10:59 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1
First: 13/5/2012 Last: 13/5/2012 |
In response to "Have you ever had a power cut at work? What did you do?": [We had a power cut last week. Staff came in first thing but could not raise the shutters on the front door or get the computers on.. We have a few rooms in a neighbouring multi-occupied medical centre ,so staff stood in the car park re-direction patients over there. One of my partners who had never worked at the other site was shown into the wrong room belonging to a single handed GP ,so it was hit and miss whose patients she actually saw that day! I think they regularly have different locums so staff didn't bat an eyelid. We do have remote access to the systm1 GP record so the emergency plan can in fact work reasonably well for a short time, But is it just a co-incidence that several other local practices also reported very local power failures last week? |
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Re: Have you ever had a power cut at work? What did you do?
posted at 13/5/2012 3:00 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 3045
First: 27/3/2012 Last: 20/5/2013 |
In Response to Re: Have you ever had a power cut at work? What did you do?: I think it is an absolute tragedy when we forget our history. The needs of the undeveloped world, where electricity, let alone clean water, are a luxury have been in the minds of anaesthetists for many years, and the EMO (Epstein-Mackintiosh-Oxford) anaesthesia system was devised in the 1950s, exactly for this purpose. The only addition to that system in the machine you link to, miguel, is that of an oxygen concentrator, which, I regret to have to point out, needs electricity to work. It also relies on electronic monitors What a pity that Dr.Frankel or her colegaue who worked in Africa, had no eduation in the History of anaesthesia, and an inflexible frame of mind that demanded a Boyles machine style of anaesthesia deivery system. So, in missionary mode, bringing light into darkness I presnt to you the Epstein-Mackintosh-Oxford anaestehsia system. http://www.nda.ox.ac.uk/wfsa/html/u15/u1506_01.htm It works by the draw-over technique, where the patent's own respiration, or ventilation by the anaesthetist passes the gases through the vapouriser. Designed to work with ether, it was upgraded to use the OMV (Oxford Miniature Vapouriser) as soon as halothane (still the cheapest and safest vapour) was valailble and then penthrane and isoflurane. The OMV was the basis for the UK military medical service anaesthesia system the Triservice, so well, established, but probaly unacceptable across the water as "not invented here". See the excellent Sheffield Dept.of Anaesthesia museum website: http://soa.group.shef.ac.uk/museum/index_sheets/vaporisers.html An anaestehtic education, or any education is incomplete without some history. John Posted by John D Many thanks Dr. John D for both of your posts! I always like the way you express, streightforward & inherantly meaningful discussions. |
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