[Anesthesiologic treatment of 3,665 patients in Red Cross hospitals in Thailand, Lebanon, Pakistan and Indonesia].

Between the end of 1979 and the beginning of 1984, the authors served as anaesthetists for Red Cross missions in surgical field hospitals on the Thai-Cambodian and the Afghan-Pakistan borders, in Lebanon, and in Indonesia. A total of 3665 civilian emergency patients were anaesthetised. 643 were operated on under local anaesthesia; 639, under regional anaesthesia, in most cases spinal anaesthesia. In spite of principal preference for local and regional anaesthetic techniques, 65% of the patients (2383 patients) were managed under general anaesthesia, which was maintained with halothane in 947 cases and ketamine in 1345 cases. 877 general anaesthesias with ketamine were performed with spontaneous breathing of ambient air; endotracheal anaesthesia was necessary in 1238 patients. In spite of the high risk for the patients and of the operative interventions and in the light of the simple and sometimes even primitive working conditions, no anaesthesia-related fatalities occurred. Postoperative lethality was 2%. In all cases, the duties of the anaesthesist involved more than performance of anaesthesia, which was sometimes assigned to paramedics. Other duties included preoperative examination, postoperative intensive care, consultation services in nonsurgical emergency cases, resuscitation, and training of local assistants.