Call to tackle issue of waking during surgery

"Suddenly, I knew something had gone wrong: I could hear voices around me, and I realised with horror that I had woken up in the middle of the operation, but couldn’t move a muscle."

These are the chilling words of one 12-year-old girl whose traumatic surgery story was heard by medics investigating the problem of people waking from anaesthesia during procedures.

The claim of ‘Sandra’, who said she woke up during a routine procedure, was initially dismissed by surgeons.

However, despite the denials, it later emerged that she and more than 300 other people in Ireland and Britain over the past three years were telling the truth about what happened.

“While they fiddled, I tried to decide whether I was about to die and what options were open to me,” Sandra said.

“I was taken to recovery and said I woke up during the operation.

“Each time I said it, I was told that this couldn’t be true, that it was my imagination, that I was mistaken.

“When I reported surgically-related conversations to the theatre team, they went a little white — but continued to deny what had happened.”

Sandra’s story was among a number of personal comments from patients who woke up or became in some way conscious during surgery, included in a report compiled as part of the largest-ever investigation into how and why people wake during surgery.

Now medics involved in this investigation have urged officials to put in place key recommendations to ensure the problem is tackled.

The call was made by senior experts from the Royal College of Anaesthetists and the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, after both bodies revealed detailed new research on the “most feared” issue in surgery.

As reported in yesterday’s Irish Examiner, the three-year study has found that, since 2011 in Ireland and Britain, at least 300 people had either woken up during surgery, been conscious but unable to move due to muscle relaxants, or were awoken as they were being moved to the operating theatre.

Of this group, 11 cases occurred in Ireland in a 12-month period, with 41% of all incidents causing “long-term psychological harm” and 5% resulting in ongoing legal action.

Speaking at the launch of the findings yesterday, College of Anaesthetists of Ireland president Ellen O Sullivan said that despite the low Irish results compared to Britain, the situation still needed to be addressed in this country.

She said that key issues such as a pre-surgery checklist, further investigations into what drugs were potentially causing the situation, and listening to patient concerns needed to be placed at the top of the agenda — in addition to improving anaesthetist staffing levels in hospitals.

“We have worrying data comparing us to the UK which shows that we have half the number of senior anaesthetists in some hospitals than the average in the UK,” said Dr O’Sullivan.

“We are appointing surgeons without anaesthetists — and that is potentially a huge safety issue.”

The Accidental Awareness During General Anaesthetic report can be found at www.anaesthesia.ie