Anaes · Medical gases & gas supply

Medical gases and gas supply

Also known as Medical gas supply · Cylinder · Pipeline · Pin-index · Gas laws · Entonox

The medical gas supply provides the oxygen, the nitrous oxide, the medical air and the carbon dioxide used in anaesthesia. The framework rests on four exam-critical ideas: the supply doctrine of identity, continuity, adequacy and quality with a backup plan for loss of the primary source (Das 2013); the two supply systems — the hospital pipeline (the primary, at 4 bar pipeline pressure) and the cylinders (the reserve, steel-alloy or aluminium, pin-index small valves and bullnose large valves); the cylinder physics that oxygen follows pressure while nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide liquefy and must be weighed against the tare; and the machine-check and low-flow systems that conserve supply (AAGBI 2012, Tiviraj 2016, Parthasarathy 2013).