[FIRST REPORTED GENERAL ANESTHESIA SURGERY IN THE FIRST JAPANESE FIELD HOSPITAL].

Abstract

On April 25th, 2015, a massive 7.8-Mw earthquake occurred 77 km northwest of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. Disaster relief medical teams from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) were sent to Nepal on April 28th. The primary medical team consisted of 46 people, including two trauma surgeons. A meeting was held in Kathmandu by the Nepal Government Ministry of Health and Population and the World Health Organization for the foreign medical teams. The JICA team was asked to provide hub hospital services in Barhabise in the District of Sindhupalchok where some of the greatest damage had occurred. It was not until May 4th that medical supplies for our large medical tents and surgeries arrived in Kathmandu; the supplies were then sent on to Barhabise by road that same day. Our field hospital for both surgery and patient beds was finally operational on May 5th. This was the first time that a Japanese team performed surgery using general anesthesia in a Japanese field hospital. The surgery was for a left Lisfranc joint dislocation with open fracture in a 37-year-old woman. We had patients stay in the field hospital overnight after their surgeries. As the quantity of supplies increases, response times are affected because we have no transportation means such as the armed forces. These problems need to be considered in the future.