Due of the danger desflurane poses to the environment, Scotland has become the first nation in the world to forbid its hospitals from using it.
According to NHS research, the gas, which is used to keep patients unconscious during surgery, has 2,500 times more potential to cause global warming than carbon dioxide.
By outlawing it in Scotland, emissions from its peak use in 2017 would be reduced by the amount needed to power 1,700 households for a year.
Hospitals in the UK have already made cuts.
More than 40 hospital trusts in England and several hospitals in Wales have discontinued using it in recent years.
NHS England will enact a comparable restriction beginning in 2024, which, like Scotland, forbids its use in all but extraordinary instances.
According to an NHS analysis of desflurane use in 2020, banning it across all NHS hospitalsScotland is the first country to outlaw dangerous anesthetics. in England would reduce harmful emissions by the amount produced by 11,000 homes being powered each year.
In the next years, it’s possible that other nations, including those in Europe, will take similar action.
Dr. Kenneth Barker, an anaesthetist and clinical lead for Scotland’s national green theatres programme, expressed his horror at learning how damaging to the environment the anaesthetic medicine he had been used for more than ten years for numerous important and ordinary procedures was.
“In 2017, I came to the realisation that the quantity of desflurane we utilised in a regular day’s work
“I made the decision to cease using it right soon, and many of my colleagues anesthesiologists agreed.
“I am quite delighted we have reached this stage where you are presented with something as evident as this and with the relevance it has to the ecosystem.”
Many hospitals have converted to employing safe and efficient non-gaseous anaesthetics and more efficient machinery in place of anaesthetic gases with higher global warming potential, such as sevoflurane, which has a potential 130 times that of carbon dioxide.
Humza Yousaf, the secretary for health and social care in Scotland, said: “Programs like this are essential to ensure that patient safety remains at the centre of every clinical decision as we transition to a net-zero health service.
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Meanwhile. Vice president of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, Dr. Helgi Johannsson, told the BBC that “more and more anaesthetists throughout the UK have become aware of the sheer scale of the damage the gas can make to the environment and have chosen to stop using it. I am pleased of that.”
He does, however, caution that it is simply the beginning and “a drop in the ocean of the NHS carbon impact”.
He clarified: “The NHS is a very carbon-intensive sector of the economy. The other significant issues that can have an impact are addressing the issue of difficult-to-heat ancient hospital facilities and minimising patient travel.”
Overall, the carbon footprint of the NHS is between two and five percent.
footprint, and initiatives are being made to address nitrous oxide and other medicinal gases.
As part of NHS England’s net-zero policy, the organisation is looking at more ecologically friendly heating and lighting systems, eco-friendly transportation options, and the effects of how medications and other supplies are provided to the NHS on the environment.
As part of NHS England’s net-zero policy, the organisation is looking at more ecologically friendly heating and lighting systems, eco-friendly transportation options, and the effects of how medications and other supplies are provided to the NHS on the environment.
