Celebrate Solutions: Universal Anesthetic Machine Saves Lives In Developing Countries

By: Dr. Aoife Kenny, Volunteer at Women Deliver

Imagine you are an expectant mother in a developing country. You know women who have died in childbirth and want to make sure both you and your child are safe. You have heard the “big” hospital has trained midwives and surgeons, so as you go into labor, you travel there.

Your labor is long, too long, and the midwife is concerned something is wrong. The pain in your belly intensifies and the midwife takes your blood pressure. It is dangerously low. You are told you are losing a lot of blood and you need to have an operation to get the baby out. You are afraid, but you trust in the hospital’s trained staff.

Now picture yourself as the clinical officer trained to give anesthetics. Your colleague wants to perform a caesarian section to save the life of the mother and child. Due to her low blood pressure and the immediacy at hand, you can’t use the preferred spinal anesthetic. Because this hospital is in one of the least developed countries in the world, you don’t have a reliable source of power, and the compressed oxygen the donated anesthetic machine needs, has run out. You know the options available for putting your patient to sleep are not good, and there is a significant risk she might not wake up, but what other choice do you have?

The inability to deliver safe and effective anesthesia is one of the most difficult and frequent obstacles in providing surgical care, in low-resource situations. As caesarean sections are the most common major surgery in sub-Saharan Africa, unsafe or unavailable techniques often cost the lives of women and babies. In response theses difficulties, Dr. Paul Fenton, a British anesthesiologist, designed, created and developed his own anesthetic machine. Afterwards, while training clinical officers in Nepal (with the Nick Simons Institute), Dr. Fenton described his new prototype to his colleagues. As a result, The Institute arranged for Fenton’s Universal Anesthetic Machine (UAM) to be utilized and studied in Nepali hospitals; ultimately, providing data that confirmed the UAM was effective and safe.

The UAM is different from regular anesthetic machines because it can work with or without electricity; an ideal feature when faced with power outages during surgery. Additionally, it doesn’t require expensive or difficult to source bottled oxygen; it draws oxygen from the air and concentrates it to meet the appropriate level needed for each patient. Specifically designed so the maintenance doesn’t require a specialist, parts can be removed and replaced with ease.  It also has the necessary patient monitoring equipment, is transportable, and is much less expensive than most machines.

UAMs are now used in 13 hospitals in Malawi, South Africa, Nepal and the United Kingdom, where a recent study found it to be easy to use, reliable and ideal for developing countries. Two new studies of the UAM are also underway: The UK’s Department for International Development in northern Nigeria and John Hopkins University in Sierra Leone. The studies will provide further feedback on the practicalities of using the UAM, how it affects health outcomes, and also, patient experiences.  

Flickr photo by: cyclopsr