Anaesthesia Method “Used With Safety”

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31988, 15 May 1969, Page 1

Anaesthesia Method “Used With Safety”

Anaesthetists throughout the world were now administering intravenous anaesthetic agents to patients in a sitting position with complete safety, said Dr D. G. R. Wright, of Wellington, yesterday.

Dr Wright is chairman of s the New Zealand Dominion < Committee of the Royal Aus- ] tralasian College of Surgeons’ Faculty of Anaesthetists. He was referring to a • statement made at a Welling- , ton inquest into the death of , a woman who died of heart ; failure in a Porirua dental ( surgery while under anaesthe- ; tic. 1 A Lower Hutt pathologist, ; Dr W. S. Alexander, had told i the coroner that many medically qualified anaesthetists re- ; garded the administration of j an intravenous anaesthetic i agent to a seated patient as i an undesirable practice. i “To avoid upsetting the public and misleading the i dental profession, this state- i ment needs some qualification,” said Dr Wright yesterday. i “When intravenous anaes- 1 thetic agents were first intro- 1 duced it is correct to say that i problems were experienced 1 with anaesthesia in a sitting i position. j “However, with increasing] i knowledge, more modem ; techniques and greater experience, anaesthetists throughout the world are

administering intravenous anaesthetic agents to patients in a sitting position with complete safety.” Study By Dentists The executive of the New Zealand Dental Association will meet soon to discuss the case of the 29-year-old Porirua housewife who died from cardiac arrest during the anaesthesia administered for the extraction of her teeth, according to the Press Association. The secretary of the association (Mr P. Swinburn) said in Auckland today that full details of the case were being obtained and would require considerable thought. A statement would be made when the executive had considered the details. At the inquest the Coroner (Mr J. Meltzer) raised two issues before delivering his finding. These were the practice of dentists relying merely on the word of the patient as to previous medical history—a matter of concern in deciding the safety of administering an anaesthetic—and the practice of administering intravenous injections in a dentist’s chair to a patient in • a sitting position.