Nurse anaesthetists celebrate anniversary

If you ever had to undergo surgery and needed anesthesia, no doubt you have had the overwhelming fear and concern about how it will be done, how you will feel and if the procedure is safe. But once you have had the operation and recovered from either the local or general anesthesia, you can’t help but marvel at the wonders of medicine. For the past twenty five years, nurses have been assisting surgeons inside the operating theatres but as Belize’s Certified Nurse Anaesthetists celebrate their silver jubilee they feel they have not been given the recognition they deserve. Today they hosted a forum to discuss their status and the challenges that they face in the year two thousand. Agueda Salas is one of the first nurse anaesthetists to be certified.

Agueda Salas, C.R.N.A.

“What is happening is that we are practicing a profession that is both for medical and nurses but, it was mostly seen as a doctor’s profession so we are left in the middle now. We are not nurses and we are not doctors. So we are seen, you know, as in between and we need to be placed somewhere.

We are asking for computers since we are not computerized. We need to be computerized, modernized in certain machines. Only the Karl Heusner at the present moment has a computerized anaesthetic machine. All the other areas, I work in Belmopan and I have to keep bagging. If it is a seven hour long procedure, I have to bag for seven hours and it is very tiring.”

Salas says there is an urgent need to train more nurses to administer anesthesia since those presently on staff are reaching retirement age.