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Is your scavenger system functional?

The scavenging of anesthetic waste gas according to OSHA standards is a vital part of protecting the operating room personnel from the adverse effects of breathing residual anesthetic agents. We would like to report the finding in our institution of numerous machines with inoperable scavenging systems on random survey. Recently, we purchased 10 Narkomed 2B anesthesia systems equipped with an open scavenging system. Our previous machines used the traditional closed scavenging systems that were familiar to our anesthesia providers. The closed system utilized a spring-loaded valve for positive and negative pressure relief. The open system, however, uses continually open ports to provide positive and negative pressure relief. The open system, when connected to suction and in the functional position, makes an audible sound that may have caused operating room personnel to disconnect or inactivate the system to eliminate the sound. On a random survey, we found that 10 of 10 anesthesia systems were being used with the scavenging device in the "off" mode. The head technician at Narkomed Inc. reported that if the machine is used with the scavenger system in the off position, the anesthetic gases accumulate in the chamber and spill into the room, polluting the operating room environment. Figure 1 indicates the correct "on" position with the "ball" in between the two white lines. We would like to emphasize that the scavenging system is a routine part of the anesthestic machine checkout. However, we have consistently noted that the system is turned off by operating room personnel. We hope that our reporting this to the anesthesia community will prevent exposing operating room personnel to anesthetic agents and thereby assist them to conform to OSHA standards.