Impact of gaseous pollution in surgical theatres and its management

In the present work surgical theatre chemical gaseous pollution and its effect on health care workers is examined.A small cohort population consisting of doctors, nurses and theatre assistants are subjected for methaemoglobin screening from their blood samples. There is an increase of 1.219% methaemoglobin among doctors than the counterpart control subjects (r= -0.027) while nurses have higher methaemoglobin (r= -0.247) than doctors and theatre assistants (r= -0.377). This would suggest that the nurses are spending longer duration and standing in surgical theatre polluted with nitrogen based anesthetic gases. The nurses may have the risk of occupationally acquired methaemoglobinemia. The best air scavenging system should be installed in surgical theatres to prevent methaemoglobinemia among health care workers.