Direct medical costs of anaesthesia in Siriraj Hospital.

ABSTRACT

The direct medical cost of anaesthesia in 1995 at Siriraj Hospital, which is a government tertiary care and teaching hospital was studied from the hospital’s perspective. The costs of anaesthesia were divided into labour cost, equipment cost, and drug and consumable item cost. For labour cost, different personnel were costed separately. In the care of equipment costs depreciation was applied. The costs of drugs and consumable items were calculated at 1995 prices. Four operative procedures paediatric inguinal herniorrhaphy, caesarean section, laparoscopic cholecystectomy and correction of scoliosis were used as models to show different costs of an anaesthetist (salary plus fringe benefits) was 136.80 baht per hour. The cost of equipment varied from 4.04 to 38.42 baht per hour. The percentage of the labour cost, equipment cost, and drug and consumable item cost, were 40, 12 and 48 percent respectively in anaesthesia for scoliosis correction and 29, 6 and 65 percent respectively in caesaream section under general anaesthesia. The cost of monitoring equipment was lower than the amount that the hospital previously charged. We did not include non-medical costs and indirect medical costs in this study. The direct medical cost was low because of low personnel salary in the government sector. This study lay the toundations for further economic analysis in anaesthesia.