Patient portal
In the Anaesthesiology Department at SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital we work to reduce the anguish of our pediatric patients during the surgical process and also in assisting women during childbirth.
We specialise in caring for children and women before, during and after surgical procedures. Our objective is to prevent patients from experiencing pain while they are surrounded by their families in the safest environment possible.
We treat all surgical specialties in children, from birth to 18 years of age, and in women of any age, to meet all their obstetric and gynaecological needs.
Our team consists of physicians and nurses who specialise in Anaesthesiology. Together with the teams from the surgical specialties, we provide planned and emergency care to patients from both Spain and other countries 24 hours a day.
The anesthesia procedure
Before a surgical procedure
We perform a medical evaluation of the patient to ensure that performing the surgical procedure is indicated. We offer anxiolytic methods to decrease the fear of the child and the family before an operation, and to prevent severe disorders which may arise from poor management of their fears.
Parental presence during anesthesia induction
During anaesthesia procedures
We keep the patient under the safest possible conditions with techniques suited to each process, whether common or specialised surgical procedures. We provide personalised analgesia during and after surgery to treat pain.
In collaboration with the Women's Area, we offer pain management alternatives in the more than 4,000 births per year that are overseen at the Hospital. We also provide critical care to women to meet all their obstetric and gynaecological needs.
In the postoperative period
The Anaesthesia Department treats acute pain, mostly postoperative pain, using multiple analgesic techniques:
- Patient-controlled analgesia (children over 6 years of age).
- Nurse-controlled analgesia (children under 6 years of age and non-cooperative children).
- Epidural analgesia.
- Nerve blocks.
- Administration of opioids and other drugs to treat pain.
Why SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital?
We are pioneers in the use of techniques to mitigate the fears and uncertainties of children and their families before a surgical intervention, with the aim of avoiding the severe disorders that poor management of their fears can cause.
Attention to the fears of the child and the family
We are pioneers in the use of techniques to mitigate the fears and uncertainties of children and their families before a surgical intervention, with the aim of avoiding the severe disorders that poor management of their fears can cause.
At SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital, we treat families, not just patients. We are pioneers in using techniques to alleviate the fears and uncertainties of the child and the family before a surgical procedure, in order to prevent severe disorders which may arise from poor management of their fears.
Anguish and fear may even negatively influence the patient's recovery. We therefore work in collaboration with parents as an essential element in decreasing fear and anxiety, and also lessening children's discomfort and pain.
- Information is the best anxiolytic. The patient and the family meet with the anaesthesiologist to dispel all their doubts before a procedure. Putting ourselves in the shoes of the child and the family is an essential part of our work.
- We offer parents the option of entering the surgical area so that they may accompany their sleeping child.
- We were the first in Spain to introduce clowns in the operating theatre to entertain children and alleviate their anxiety before a procedure.
- We have a Child Life specialist, a nurse and a psychologist who work with the child and the family to alleviate all their fears before entering the operating theatre.
- To support our commitment to alleviate anxiety and fears, we have also prepared educational materials, such as a story illustrated by Xavier Mariscal.
We are experts in adapting anesthesia to the particularities of each patient and their disease.
Experience in personalized analgesia
We are experts in adapting anesthesia to the particularities of each patient and their disease.
- We provide personalised analgesia during and after surgery. We are experts in adapting anaesthesia to the particular characteristics of each patient and each disease.
- We are pioneers in using special outpatient pain management techniques in different specialties: oncological surgery, trauma anaesthesia, rare diseases, heart diseases and birth defects, etc.
- We are experts in performing sedation techniques outside of the surgical area, in order to provide physical and emotional comfort to the child and to allow the professional to perform the test as safely as possible. These techniques are used to conduct diagnostic tests that in adults would be performed without sedation, but that in children require anaesthesia, for example: radiological tests, magnetic resonance imaging, cardiac catheterisation, ophthalmological tests, rehabilitation and biopsies.
We work in coordination with other services and units of the Hospital and we have a specialist in Acupuncture.
Specific consultation for the treatment of chronic pain
We work in coordination with other services and units of the Hospital and we have a specialist in Acupuncture.
We collaborate with other specialized services of the Hospital for the treatment of pain in children with cancer or who have been amputated.The Anaesthesiology Department at SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital is a leader in Spain in evaluating patients with anxiety, accredited by the Spanish Society of Anaesthesiology and Resuscitation (SEDAR).
We collaborate with multiple international NGOs by sending our professionals to work on projects that they are carrying out in southern countries, such as Honduras and Sierra Leone.
Our Outcomes
Anaesthesiology: Procedures per year
Procedures requiring anaesthesia in outpatient surgery
Procedures requiring anaesthesia in hospitalization
Our professionals
"We do everything possible to turn the process of surgery into a game and to alleviate the fear of both the child and the family"
Research
The Anaesthesiology Department at SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital collaborates on international research projects in the following fields:
- Fluid therapy.
- Anaesthetic care in neonates and infants.
- Child comfort and safety.
- Decreasing stress before surgery: Project Stars
- Decreasing stress in the postoperative period.
- Pain.
Teaching
SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital is a university hospital affiliated with the University of Barcelona. We share our knowledge and train professionals so that they may specialise in Paediatric Anaesthesiology.
Specialised training of resident physicians (MIR)
We are a leading hospital in training specialist physicians from other hospitals in Anaesthesiology. Each year, we train 40 resident physicians (MIR), who come from Catalonia and all over the Spain.
Training in inhalation anaesthesia
We are an international training centre in inhalation anaesthesia.