ORIGINAL ARTICLE First Year's Experience with an Acute Pain Service- University Hospital Kuala Lumpur

Anaesth<:;~iology in October.1992 for more effective control of postoperative pain. The main modalities of treatment included patient coutroIled analgesia (PCA) using morphine or pethidine with PCA devises, epidural opiate analgesia (EOA) using tramadol or fentanyl I bupivacaine mixture and subcutaneous administration of morphine or pethidine. Five hundn::d and fifty-one patients were managed in the first year, with an overaIl patient satisfaction score of 83%. The majority (98.5%) of them were after abdominal or major orthopaedic surgery. Eighty per cent of patients scored < 3 on the verbal numeric pain scale, where 0 is no pain and 10 is the worst imaginable pain, on the first postoperative day. Nausea and vomiting was an unpleasant side effect in 20 % of patients. Key Words: Acute pain service, Patient controlled analgesia, Epidural opiate analgesi