EMERGENCY GENERAL ANAESTHETIC SETUP IN DELIVERY SUITE    A team-based approach

An emergency general anaesthetic (GA) on delivery suite is one of the more stressful situations an anaesthetist can face. Out-of-hours, our unit is staffed by one anaesthetic registrar and one nurse who have to carry out many time critical steps to safely set up for an emergency GA. In the Royal Jubilee Maternity Hospital, midwives have less exposure to emergency GA for Caesarean section as this procedure is becoming less common1. We have introduced teaching and an aide-mémoire for our midwives to promote a safer, quicker team based approach for an emergency GA set up.