1. Neonatal Resuscitation Equipment Hannah Spiers, Global Links volunteer, Bwindi Community Hospital, Uganda Michael Barton, Medical student, Bwindi Community Hospital, Uganda
Results
Aims
The initial audit showed that the Maternity department only had 56% of equipment immediately available and have high priority items missing (such as stethoscope and premature size mask). The re-audit has shown a good improvement, with 84% of equipment now being immediately available.
Birth asphyxia is one of the main causes of neonatal morbidity and mortality, therefore it is imperative that resuscitation can be performed promptly and effectively. We aimed to improve the availability of emergency equipment, reducing delays in neonatal resuscitation.
Methods
An audit was performed of neonatal resuscitation equipment availability at the three points (neonatal unit, maternity unit and theatre) was our key measure. The setting was a rural hospital in Uganda.
Figure 3
Conclusions
Figure 1
Figure 2
Equipment organised into ABC
Missing equipment replaced
Checklist introduced for nurses to use
There has been sustained improvement in organisation of neonatal resuscitation equipment and its availability. We learnt that regular audit and feedback can be successful in both high and low resource settings.