ANAESTHESIA & PATIENT MONITORING
At our clinic, we provide inhalant (gas) anaesthesia & patient monitoring for all patients who are scheduled for surgery. Anaesthetic medication and dosing decisions are made on an individual basis to suit your pet’s temperament, health, age, breed and anaesthetic history and are tailored to the type of procedure to be performed.
Our theatre is well equipped with modern anaesthetic equipment, as well as patient monitoring devices for measuring heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, body temperature, oxygen saturation levels in the blood, and carbon dioxide levels in expired exhaled breaths.
Patient monitoring allows our staff to have access to additional information as to what is happening inside the patient’s body in real-time, allowing for appropriate treatment to be tailored to the individual pet. Patients are monitored constantly before, during and after a procedure and all details are recorded. Patients are maintained on 100% oxygen and IV fluids at all times.
Pre-anaesthetic blood testing is strongly recommended by our vets for many patients prior to their surgery, depending on their age, breed and disease status. This will help us decide if your pet is a good candidate for the operation to be performed. Liver and kidney function are two organs routinely tested in our panel. The benefits of pre-anaesthetic blood testing for your pet are to identify any underlying abnormalities, allow us to modify our anaesthetic protocol if required, and also establish baseline data for your pet, allowing us to improve our ability to identify developing health problems in future visits.
PAIN MANAGEMENT
Pain management at our clinic is not optional. Anytime you have an injured animal or an animal that is going into surgery they deserve the benefits of pain management. It has been proven that animals heal faster and with fewer complications when they are properly managed with pain medications not only during and after but before a painful procedure starts. When indicated, local anaesthesia (for example, an epidural) is used in conjunction with general anaesthesia in order to provide the best possible pain relief for your pet. Pain management can also be a quality of life issue in cases of arthritis, cancer or other chronic debilitating diseases.