OT Temperature

1. Introduction
2. Relevant Articles from other sites
3. Relevant Extracts
4. Proposal
5. Action
6. Proposal information

1. Introduction

Have you chaps noticed how cold the OT can get some days? It can be downright freezing ... Bbbrrrrrr! Less often, no, much less often are the days when the OT gets too hot.

Although I have informed the nursing staff, including Miss Loke, of the perils of hypothermia on the patient, there doesn't seem to be any improvement.

If anything, things have gotten worse. Thermostats that were previously working have now gone on the blink and whatever temperature you may have set makes no difference. The air-conditioner continues at full blast bringing the temperature down to 18 degrees C on hot days and even down to 15 degrees C when it's cold and raining outside.

The staff, including myself, end up bundling themselves with multiple layers of clothes ... and still feel cold, especially at our unprotected extremities.
 

• The efficiency of the staff goes down as they battle with the cold,
• Money is wasted in acquiring extra OT bajus,
• Laundry costs go up, and
• Electricity costs sky-rocket because of the high energy consumption of air-conditioners.


There is a widespread belief among the nursing staff that hypothermia, reduces infection rates. Their assumption is that bacteria and viruses proliferate in a warm environment and hence would lead to an increase in infection rates. What they fail to realise, is that there is a patient in that formula. Hypothermia reduces the ability of the patient to fight the infections and this leads to an overal increase in infection rates

There are many other ill effects suffered by patients under anaesthesia in cold enviroments, but I leave it to the many articles on this issue enumerated below to further inform you of the ill effects of hypothermia.
 

2. Relevant Articles from other sites
1. Colorectal Surgery Comes in from the Cold

The New England Journal of Medicine, May 9 1996, Volume 334 Number 19
2. Perioperative Normothermia to Reduce the Incidence of Surgical-Wound Infection and Shorten Hospitalization

The New England Journal of Medicine, May 9 1996, Volume 334 Number 19
3. Perioperative Maintenance of Normothermia Reduces the Incidence of Morbid Cardiac Events

JAMA Abstracts, April 9 1997
3. Relevant Extracts
1. Mild Perioperative Hypothermia - Conclusion

The New England Journal of Medicine, June 12 1997, Volume 336 Number 24
The full text of this article is available in our SJMC medical library.
2. General Anaesthesia 5th Edition by Nunn, Utting, Brown, Page 593
3. Textbook of Anaesthesia by G Smith & AR Aitkenhead, Pages 272 to 273

 
4. Proposal

I would like to propose that we,
1. Ensure that the administration is aware that the anaesthetist, as in OT's all over the world, should be in charge of the OT enviroment including the OT temperature, and not the nursing staff, or heaven forbid, the air-conditioning engineer,
2. Correct the misconception by the staff, of the effect of hypothermia on infection rates, and
3. Iinsist that all the thermostats in each and every theatre be repaired to working order, to allow us to adjust the temperature acording to the needs of the patient and the surgeon.

 
5. Action

This topic is closed.

Dr. Jacob Thomas will check up and ensure that the thermostats are functional in North Tower but he says that nothing can be done about South Tower as there is only one single air-conditioner for the whole theatre complex. So when OT4 has a CABG, everyone has to freeeezzze.
 

Proposal Information

Proposer:	Kok Wah
Date:	16 January 1999

 

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Updated:-  16 January 1999