Each year, a number of people are left in serious pain and trauma after procedures requiring a general anaesthetic go wrong.

It should be noted that the vast majority of anaesthetists are highly qualified, experienced professionals who take painstaking care to ensure that anaesthetic is always delivered correctly, ensuring the patient does not suffer any pain during surgery. However, negligent behaviour among practitioners occasionally leads to appalling consequences.

Frequency of anaesthesia awareness incidents

Anaesthetic awareness affects only a small proportion of patients who go under anaesthetic – around 0.1 to 0.2 per cent. Of those patients who do wake from anaesthetic whilst surgery is still on-going, there is a vast scale of difference in the amount of sensation that is regained and, as such, there is a wide range in the severity of anaesthesia awareness experiences. While some patients might find that they regain consciousness enough only to hear conversations between doctors during the procedure, others may regain feeling and sensation all over their body and find themselves in searing pain.

The statistics that have been gathered on the subject suggest that the most common experience of patients who suffer anaesthetic awareness is extreme panic. As many as 94 per cent of anaesthesia awareness sufferers claim to have experienced panic.

More than two thirds of patients who experience anaesthesia awareness develop long-term psychological symptoms, which is hardly surprising, particularly given that as many as 42 per cent of victims actually feel the pain of the surgery being carried out on them.

Severe cases of anaesthesia awareness

Following the most severe cases of anaesthesia awareness, victims can experience a range of extremely traumatic symptoms, including post-traumatic stress disorder, flash-backs, paranoia, nightmares, insomnia, and even depression.

What causes anaesthetic awareness?

Doctors work very hard to ensure that anaesthetic awareness never occurs, but sadly human error often leads to tragic oversights.

One of the most common causes of the problem is a failure to provide the patient with enough anaesthetic to hold them under for long enough for the procedure to be carried out. In most such scenarios, an anaesthetist or a nurse would notice the patient’s heart rate or blood pressure increasing and immediately administer a further dose, but sadly this doesn’t always occur.

The maintenance and proper use of anaesthetic equipment is something that all anaesthetists take the utmost care in, but again errors do occur and this too leads to anaesthetic awareness in patients. Malfunctioning equipment, or anaesthetic delivery tubes not being connected properly, can easily lead to an inadequate dose being administered and awareness being re-gained midway through the procedure.

Claiming compensation after anaesthesia awareness

The severe pain and suffering that anaesthesia awareness victims go through can make life difficult to bear. In situations where there has been a clear lack of vigilance in the safety of the procedure, or where it is evident that those administering the anaesthesia have acted negligently, victims have every right to claim compensation for the harm done to them.