Surgery and Patient Safety in Low-Resource Countries

Dear Colleague,

Thank you for taking the time to complete our survey for all operating room staff involved in performing laparotomy procedures and cesarean sections in low-resource country settings.

This work is part of an ongoing surgical safety scoping project for the Lifebox Foundation, investigating the availability and condition of surgical instruments, sterile processing, and equipment maintenance on patient safety so that we can develop strategies to address gaps identified.

To read more about this scoping project, or to make a donation to support this work, please visit the Lifebox website here.

Responses can be anonymous, and no answers will be directly attributed to any respondent or hospital. The results will be collated in a formal report.

Best wishes,
Dr Ed Fitzgerald & Dr Mood Bhutta

Please contact info@lifebox.org for more information on this project

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* 1. Which of these options best describes your hospital?
If you work in many hospitals, please complete for the hospital where you work the most. If you are a visiting clinician, please complete for the low-income hospital you visit. 

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* 2. How is this clinic or hospital managed?


Please answer all the following questions based on this main low-resource hospital you work at:

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* 3. Are you permanently based here or a visiting clinician?

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* 4. What country do you work in?
Please complete for the low-resource hospital you referred to in Q1

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* 5. Please specify your primary role:

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* 6. How many laparotomies were performed at your facility last week? Including both elective and emergency patients

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* 7. How many caesarean sections were performed at your facility last week? Including both elective and emergency patients

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* 8. How many functioning operating rooms are in use at your hospital?

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* 9. Do any of the operating rooms have more than one operating table?

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* 10. How many functioning autoclaves or other sterilising devices are there for surgical instruments at your hospital?

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* 11. Are the surgical instruments at your hospital high enough quality to perform the surgery needed safely?

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* 12. Is sterility and sterile practice at your hospital high enough quality to perform the surgery needed safely?

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* 13. Are sterile surgical instruments for performing cesarean section available when needed? Including both elective and emergency patients

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* 14. How many complete and functional instrument kits for caesarean sections does your operating department have? E.g. all required instruments are present and working safely

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* 15. For laparotomy procedures, are sterile surgical instruments available when needed? Including both elective and emergency patients

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* 16. For laparotomy procedures, how many complete and functional instrument kits does your operating department have? E.g. all required instruments are present and working safely

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* 17. Do you ever delay or cancel elective or emergency operations due to a lack of sterile surgical instruments?

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* 18. Do you know of patients who have come to harm because of inadequate or lack of appropriate sterile surgical instruments? These can be your patients, or cases you heard about

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* 19. Who is responsible for maintaining the surgical instruments to keep them working and in good repair at your hospital?

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* 20. Please describe any other problems you have with surgical instruments and their sterilisation, and what could be done to help these?

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* 21. Do you know how new surgical instruments are obtained by you or your facility, and where they come from? (optional)

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* 22. Are biomedical engineers available to your hospital when needed to maintain and repair equipment?

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* 23. Would you like your facility to receive training in any of the following? Please select all that apply:

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* 24. If you would like to be included on the Lifebox mailing list to receive updates on this or other projects, please enter your email address below (optional)

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* 25. Any other comments you would like to add? (optional)

Respondents agree to anonymous use of responses in our scoping work, and to presentation and/or publication of the results where appropriate. No individual or hospital will be identified as part of this survey.

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