Would YOU accept less anesthesia during your operation to save the planet?

Researchers are asking doctors to use less anesthesia on their operated patients in the name of climate change.

Doctors at Henry Ford Health in Detroit, Michigan, said it could significantly reduce the carbon footprint of hospitals in the United States.

Research suggests that inhaled anesthesia accounts for up to 0.1% of global carbon emissions.

Dr Mohamed Fayed, Senior Anesthesiologist at the Henry Ford, said: “Global warming is increasingly affecting our daily lives and reducing greenhouse gas emissions has become crucial.

“No matter how small each effect is, it will add up. As anesthesiologists, we can make a significant contribution to this cause by making small changes to our daily practice, such as reducing anesthetic gas flow, without affecting patient care.

He made the comments at the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ annual event last Friday in Orlando, Florida.

Henry Ford Health System is now reducing the amount of anesthesia it uses in surgery in a bid to limit the hospital’s impact on climate change (file photo)

Henry Ford researchers collected data from 13,000 patients over the seven months from March to September 2021. They set a goal of reducing anesthesia use to less than 3 liters of anesthesia per minute (L/m) per surgery when possible.

Trying to reduce the overall use of anesthesia in the hospital, the team asked doctors to recall the amount used between these parts of the procedure.

This only applies to inhaled anesthetics, not sedation or localized anesthetics used in small procedures.

At the start of their research, only 65% ​​of surgeries fell below this threshold. After months of investigation, they had reduced the figure to just seven percent.

Now they want to reduce the use of anesthesia to less than 2L/m in as many operations as possible.

“For a long time there was a notion that the greenhouse effect caused in health care settings was an unavoidable and unavoidable cost of providing patient care,” Dr. Fayed said.

“But we’ve learned that reducing anesthetic gas flow is one of the many ways healthcare can reduce its contribution to the global warming crisis, along with reducing waste, turning off lights and equipment when not in use and challenging practice habits, as long as they do not compromise patient care.

The amount of anesthesia a person receives during surgery depends on their weight and other factors such as length of surgery, age, and potential risk factors

Surgical anesthetics are made up of several chemicals, including nitrous oxide halothane, isoflurance, desflurance, and sevoflurane.

According to the researchers, one hour of anesthesia use can have the equivalent impact on the atmosphere of a person driving a car nearly 800 km.

Henry Ford’s research team, which presented its findings at ADVANCE 2023 in Orlando, Florida this week, explains that surgical anesthesia requires cool gas at the start and end of procedures.

The use of high levels of anesthesia carries risks. Although harmless in almost all cases, excessive anesthesia can starve cells of oxygen and cause stroke, brain damage, coma or even death.

However, there are risks of not receiving enough anesthesia.

A person can still wake up during surgery, which can be painful and very traumatic.