SAFEST IN THE WORLD

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 51, 23 February 1945, Page 3

SAFEST IN THE WORLD

NEW LONDON OPERATING THEATRE

PREVENTING ANAESTHETIC

DEATHS

An operating theatre opened in the South Middlesex Emergcney London, by Mrs Willing wife of Britain's Minister of Health is the safest in the world. The device installed' to make the anaesthetic system virtually infallible include a control system based on ideas developed in British aircraft factories and an anaesthetic machine, a kind already used by British Army medical services. "Most anaesthetic deaths are preventable" stated Dr. Normarr .lames j the hospital anaesthetist in an interview with the London Dailj r Mirror. "In the new theatre we shall [ u&e non-interchangeable connections for different gases and have electric alarm signals to tell us when oxygen is running short. The anaesthetic machine. Avhieli I call the eighth wonder of the world, cannot give too much oxygen or too much anaesthetic once it is set. The control room is described as- looking "more like a brain factory than a part of the hospital." It contains cylinders of laughing gas oxygen and carbon dioxide which are fed through pipes and indicating valves to the anaesthetising room and operating theatre. In order to prevent any possibility of error each gas is fed through a different coloured pipe.