Equipment

Have you seen this syringe before? This is not a normal 1 cc syringe, but this is a heparin-prefilled 1 cc syringe, for blood gas samples. With this syringe, we don’t need to coat the wall of syringe with heparin manually.

PS: not all hospital / all departments have this priviledge

Sampling

How to use a blood gas analyser?

• Sometimes, as MO / HO, we have to run the blood gas by ourselves, especially in NICU / labour room / ED (some hospitals only allow certain staff to operate those machines as those machines can get spoilt easily if not handled properly)
• The video shows how a blood gas analyser machine works in general. If you notice, it only uses a little of blood, the remaining is not required. Usually I only send about 0.5 mL of blood to lab for ABG / VBG. You don’t need to fill up the whole 1.0 mL syringe to get blood gas result, if your ice is not enough, the blood at the top part will clot, then you have to retake the blood gas.
• If you are not sure how to run the machine, ask for help, don’t do it alone.