ANAESTHETIC DANCERS

Press, Volume C, Issue 29508, 9 May 1961, Page 11

ANAESTHETIC DANCERS

Deaths After Operations

(N Z.P.A -Reuter—Copyright) SYDNEY, May 8

An average of two persons die each week in New South Wales after anaesthetics for operations, a Sydney doctor states in the latest issue of the “Medical Journal of Australia.” “The more one comes to know of the circumstances surrounding these deaths the less possible it becomes to regard them as inevitable.” he says. Dr. Robert Speirs, honorary anaesthetist at Sydney Hospital, says doctors should be prepared to take the moral responsibility for the deaths of patients in their care,

They should discuss their medical knowledge among themselves and gain knowledge from their colleagues “from clinical meetings and across the tea cups, the bar, and the putting green.” The article emphasises the importance of correct preparation for operations. “There is much less glamour in keeping death out of the theatre in the first place, but the practical results are very much better than trying to

defeat death after it has arrived,” it says. On one “disastrous occasion” a senior man brushed aside a junior's comment on the appearance of a local anaesthetic solution—and three people died from the subsequent injections. Many people thought operating theatre deaths were due to misadventure or moribund patients. In fact a doctor’s human frailty played a big part.