Operating Theatre
With the goals of ensuring patient safety and the highest quality of care, the Operating Theatre (OT) in Dhulikhel hospital was established from the beginning of the hospital establishment. It maintains strict aseptic technique to prevent the surgical patient from infection and offers the best multidisciplinary teamwork. It accommodates and provides environment for various types of surgeries and prepare it for an emergency situation anytime.
Principles:
- Ensure patient safety and provide efficient surgical care to all patients in a safe, professional, environment.
- Provide the operating team with appropriate access to the OT, good working environment for doctors and staff.
- Maximize the efficiency of operating room utilization, staff, time and materials to reduce costs.
- Decrease patient delays.
- Enhance satisfaction among patients, staff, and physicians.
Physical Layout:
Because of the constant danger of contamination to the surgical patient, it has clearly delineated "clean" from "hazardous" or contaminated areas of the OT so it has divided into 3 traffic pattern areas: unrestricted (transfer bay for patient, material & equipments, lounges, record rooms, change rooms for all staff), semi-restricted (instrument and supply processing area, storage areas, and utility rooms or kitchenette and recovery room), and restricted zones (operating rooms, scrub sink areas, and sterile supply rooms).
It has six major operating rooms where oxygen, gas and suction pipe are centrally connected with central facility.The rooms are furnished with a laminar airflow system which can filter and remove air particles greater than 0.3 microns from the air. Positive air pressure system (pressure of 5 cm H2O) from ceiling of OT downwards and outwards, to push out air from OT in order to prevent bacterial contamination in the operative field is maintained. This system also controls temperature and humidity in the OT. Other rooms in the OT includes four bedded pre-operative room, six bedded recovery room and rooms for storing OT materials, equipments and machines, instrument cleaning, scrubbing, refreshment, packing and sterilization room.
Operating days are allocated for different departments however emergency operation services are available around a clock. Everyday 3-4 operating theatre staffs are allocated for on call duty. In an average, 16 major and intermidiate surgeries are performed everyday in the OT. It has its own regulations to keep the area of the surgery ideally sterile. It also has published its own brochure – "Etiquette Operating Theatre" recently which provides the pictoral presentations about the rules and regulations those should be followed in the OT.
Operation theatre has its simple, clear cleaning policy where the staff from OT can easily adhered to. Similarly OT environmental cleaning is done at the beginning of the day, between patients, at the end of each session or day and each week.
Department of OT organizes regular workshops on different topics such as laparoscopic surgeries, laparoscopic urological surgeries, regional block anesthesia and workshop for nurses and more where hands-on training as well as live operating system is performed for the participants from different parts of the country. It also facilitates several moblie surgical camps in the outreach centres of Dhulikhel Hospital in a regular basis to serve the community in their doorsteps.
Workshop on Minimal Access Surgery and Hands on Training in Gynaecology
Dhulikhel Hospital, Kathmandu University Hospital (DH, KUH)
2nd - 3rd December, 2016
