ANESTHESIA FOR ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIANS

This prospective study was designed to describe problems that arise wh en Aboriginal people undergo anaesthesia, in order to develop guidelin es for anaesthetists who are not accustomed to treating Aboriginal peo ple, Data were collected on 1122 consecutive different individuals und ergoing anaesthesia at Royal Darwin Hospital, 24.5% of whom described themselves as Aboriginal, Aboriginal patients were in a poorer physiol ogical state than were Mon-Aboriginal patients. The prevalence of diab etes mellitus, renal disease and rheumatic heart disease reported in A boriginal patients was very high, Communication difficulties were more commonly reported in Aboriginal patients, the most common difficulty was apparent shyness or fear, rather than actual language difficulty. The results suggest that the treatment of Aboriginal people involves d iagnosis and management of diverse preoperative medical problems, and that better management may be achieved by learning simple cultural str ategies and by adding Aboriginal interpreters and health workers to th e anaesthetic team.