Experience in the use of epidural anaesthesia

Epidural anaesthesia is applicable for a wide range of surgical procedures and offers distinct advantages over general and spinal anaesthesia. It is however underutilised in our environment. We report a one year experience in the use of this technique. Our objective is to describe a one year experience in the use of epidural anaesthesia with emphasis on the scope and safety in our institution. A retrospective study of all patients that had epidural anaesthesia over a one year period for different procedures. Case notes and anaesthetic records were studied and analysed using EPI info 3.2.1. software. Thirty two patients had epidural anaesthesia over the period. Majority (18 cases) were caesarean sections (56.3%). There were 9 general surgical cases (28.1%), four gynaecologic (12.0%) and one orthopaedic (3.1%) cases. Of the five complications observed (15.6%), only two could be traced to the technique of anaesthesia and the lone mortality (3.1%) was unconnected. We conclude that epidural anaesthesia is applicable to a wide range of procedures within and across disciplines in our practice and is both easy to perform and safe.