Key result
Anaesthesia-related paediatric mortality is 2 to 100 times higher in developing countries than in developed countries (0.1–1.2 per 10,000), necessitating a South African prospective outcomes study.
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This editorial highlights the urgent need for a national prospective observational database to track pediatric perioperative morbidity and mortality in South Africa.
Children represent a significant proportion of the South African population, with 30% of the population aged ≤ 15 years. 1 Globally, surgical volumes are large. An estimated 312.9 million operations took place in 2012. 2 However, there are few data on perioperative morbidity and mortality in the paediatric surgical population in South Africa. Additionally, information is not known on the number of children undergoing surgery, who provides their anaesthesia (specialist anaesthesiologists versus non-specialist anaesthesiologists), and the quality outcomes of their perioperative care. These data are essential in order to understand current paediatric perioperative morbidity and mortality in order to develop evidence-based recommendations to improve patient outcomes. The World Health Organization (WHO) has initiated the second global patient safety challenge, “Safe surgery saves lives”. This is a core set of safety standards to be applied universally. 3
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Torborg et al. (2015) conducted an editorial in Paediatric perioperative morbidity and mortality. Paediatric anaesthesia and perioperative surgical care was evaluated on Anaesthesia-related perioperative morbidity and mortality. Anaesthesia-related paediatric mortality is 2 to 100 times higher in developing countries than in developed countries (0.1–1.2 per 10,000), necessitating a South African prospective outcomes study.
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