THE tragedy in operating theatre eight at Bankstown–Lidcombe Hospital in July 2016, where one baby died and another was seriously injured, shows just how dangerous nitrous oxide can be.
At Bankstown–Lidcombe, a series of errors led to the failed resuscitation of two babies with nitrous oxide instead of oxygen. These events were reported with varying degrees of accuracy in the news media, but the final report into the incident has been released. And it’s a study on how a series of system and human errors can line up to result in serious harm.
Reading the Chief Health Officer’s report is a chilling experience for anyone who’s been involved in the resuscitation of a newborn. But visceral reactions aside, as with most medical error, there were a lot of small things that went wrong for this incident to play out the way it did – and there’s a lot we can learn from it.
Nitrous oxide is a gas commonly found in hospitals – it’s so common that most of us probably don’t even notice it. But it’s also the only anaesthetic gas that’s pumped directly through hospital pipes to wall outlets and patients, without first necessarily passing through a gas analyser.
All other anaesthetic gases, such as those used to keep patients “asleep” during surgery, are first passed through an anaesthesia machine and analysed for content. Nitrous oxide in cylinders is analysed prior to filling, and each cylinder is colour-coded. Indeed, nitrous oxide pumped through anaesthesia machines, whether through wall outlets or via cylinders, is directly analysed in real-time.
Anaesthesia machines also have built in safety features that automatically shut off nitrous oxide delivery if there’s a loss of oxygen supply, because breathing 100% nitrous oxide will always result in hypoxia.
So the lesson to learn here is in fact an old one: where error can happen, it will happen. This is a lesson learned over and over in high-risk industries with many moving parts – such as medicine. The challenge is trying to understand how to stop errors like this from ever occurring again.
But to do that we have to understand how this disaster could happen in the first place, which takes us back to January 2014. Then, a baby born on the delivery suite needed extra oxygen and the oxygen cylinder being used ran out. Not a good thing to happen.
So a decision was made to install piped outlets for oxygen into the birthing suite and then also into the neonatal resuscitaires in the operating theatres. It’s in the implementation of this plan when it appears that things started to go wrong.
The report highlights two key junctions where the next set of errors were able to occur and result in catastrophic harm.
The technique used to actually cut the lines and install new pipes was done incorrectly. The expert engineer noted in the report that all the medical gases, including nitrous oxide, were isolated during the works, rather than only the pipe being worked on. This meant that if a pipe other than oxygen was cut, there would be no immediate warning in the form of pressurised gas escaping the pipeline.
This risk was further compounded because the nitrous oxide pipe had been mislabeled as oxygen 20 years ago – when the ceiling pipes to the operating theatres were originally installed – so it’s very likely that the technician thought that they were cutting the correct pipe.
Then, once the faulty installation was complete, the procedures for testing weren’t followed. The Australian safety standard AS 2896-2011 requires a delegated anaesthetist to analyse the gas output from any new installation.
No member of the anaesthesia department was made aware that the installation was even happening.
But humans are notoriously bad at performing mundane or repetitive tasks, such as gas installation and analysis, without error. They’re even worse at it if they’re fatigued or the work is done overnight, as happened here.
So as long as nitrous oxide is plumbed next to oxygen and can be delivered to patients without real-time analysis, the opportunity exists for this to happen again. If the nitrous oxide piping had never been in the wall, the worst possible error would have been the delivery of air instead of oxygen. Not ideal, but probably not deadly.
And if all the wall outlet gases were passed through an analyser every time, this would have been an annoying near miss, resulting in someone getting an oxygen cylinder or using a different outlet.
Nitrous oxide is a useful gas with some excellent properties, but it’s time to choose. Either we change our practice so this error can never lead to harm again, or we get rid of the not-so-happy gas.
Dr Simon Hendel is a Melbourne-based anaesthetist and retrieval physician. He is completing his postgraduate studies in journalism.
Latest news from doctorportal:
At Bankstown–Lidcombe, a series of errors led to the failed resuscitation of two babies with nitrous oxide instead of oxygen. These events were reported with varying degrees of accuracy in the news media, but the final report into the incident has been released. And it’s a study on how a series of system and human errors can line up to result in serious harm.
Reading the Chief Health Officer’s report is a chilling experience for anyone who’s been involved in the resuscitation of a newborn. But visceral reactions aside, as with most medical error, there were a lot of small things that went wrong for this incident to play out the way it did – and there’s a lot we can learn from it.
Nitrous oxide is a gas commonly found in hospitals – it’s so common that most of us probably don’t even notice it. But it’s also the only anaesthetic gas that’s pumped directly through hospital pipes to wall outlets and patients, without first necessarily passing through a gas analyser.
All other anaesthetic gases, such as those used to keep patients “asleep” during surgery, are first passed through an anaesthesia machine and analysed for content. Nitrous oxide in cylinders is analysed prior to filling, and each cylinder is colour-coded. Indeed, nitrous oxide pumped through anaesthesia machines, whether through wall outlets or via cylinders, is directly analysed in real-time.
Anaesthesia machines also have built in safety features that automatically shut off nitrous oxide delivery if there’s a loss of oxygen supply, because breathing 100% nitrous oxide will always result in hypoxia.
So the lesson to learn here is in fact an old one: where error can happen, it will happen. This is a lesson learned over and over in high-risk industries with many moving parts – such as medicine. The challenge is trying to understand how to stop errors like this from ever occurring again.
But to do that we have to understand how this disaster could happen in the first place, which takes us back to January 2014. Then, a baby born on the delivery suite needed extra oxygen and the oxygen cylinder being used ran out. Not a good thing to happen.
So a decision was made to install piped outlets for oxygen into the birthing suite and then also into the neonatal resuscitaires in the operating theatres. It’s in the implementation of this plan when it appears that things started to go wrong.
The report highlights two key junctions where the next set of errors were able to occur and result in catastrophic harm.
The technique used to actually cut the lines and install new pipes was done incorrectly. The expert engineer noted in the report that all the medical gases, including nitrous oxide, were isolated during the works, rather than only the pipe being worked on. This meant that if a pipe other than oxygen was cut, there would be no immediate warning in the form of pressurised gas escaping the pipeline.
This risk was further compounded because the nitrous oxide pipe had been mislabeled as oxygen 20 years ago – when the ceiling pipes to the operating theatres were originally installed – so it’s very likely that the technician thought that they were cutting the correct pipe.
Then, once the faulty installation was complete, the procedures for testing weren’t followed. The Australian safety standard AS 2896-2011 requires a delegated anaesthetist to analyse the gas output from any new installation.
No member of the anaesthesia department was made aware that the installation was even happening.
But humans are notoriously bad at performing mundane or repetitive tasks, such as gas installation and analysis, without error. They’re even worse at it if they’re fatigued or the work is done overnight, as happened here.
So as long as nitrous oxide is plumbed next to oxygen and can be delivered to patients without real-time analysis, the opportunity exists for this to happen again. If the nitrous oxide piping had never been in the wall, the worst possible error would have been the delivery of air instead of oxygen. Not ideal, but probably not deadly.
And if all the wall outlet gases were passed through an analyser every time, this would have been an annoying near miss, resulting in someone getting an oxygen cylinder or using a different outlet.
Nitrous oxide is a useful gas with some excellent properties, but it’s time to choose. Either we change our practice so this error can never lead to harm again, or we get rid of the not-so-happy gas.
Dr Simon Hendel is a Melbourne-based anaesthetist and retrieval physician. He is completing his postgraduate studies in journalism.
Latest news from doctorportal:
Loading comments…
More from this week
Health policy
18 May 2026
Budget 2026-27 analysis: urgent care, public dental, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health
Indigenous health
18 May 2026
Trachoma successfully eliminated in Australia through Indigenous-led health care
Newsletters
Subscribe to the InSight+ newsletter
Immediate and free access to the latest articles
No spam, you can unsubscribe anytime you want.
By providing your information, you agree to our Access Terms and our Privacy Policy. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.