Anaesthesia in outreach surgical camps: more of arts than science

Abstract

People living in mountainous districts of a country like Nepal have little or no access to basic medical and surgical care facilities. The limited care they receive is through outreach camps organized time to time by governmental and several non-governmental organizations. For patient safety reasons organizing surgical outreach camps is logistically very challenging. Providing safe anaesthesia in such setting is even more challenging. The anaesthetic cares provided in such settings have mostly been guided by the experience of the anaesthesiologists in the team. Based on the accumulated evidence and experience of the author, this article intends to give an outline of planning, organizing and executing anaesthetic care in surgical outreach camps in remote difficult terrains of a country like Nepal.