Between 5 and 15 percent* of Australian birthing women experience post-partum or antepartum haemorrhage, making training in blood transfusion an essential regular exercise.

Now Tasmania’s only private hospital offering maternity services, Calvary Lenah Valley Hobart takes its training on massive blood transfusions for all theatre staff seriously.

According to Calvary Theatre Clinical Nurse Educator Katie Hinchen, blood transfusion in an emergency is a life-or-death situation and can happen at any time.

“With an increase in the capacity of our maternity services, and with new staff onboarding we want to enhance our nurses and midwives’ knowledge of these key protocols while making the education accessible and memorable,” said Ms Hinchen.

“Utilising an ‘escape-room’ approach in an operating theatre to emulate a real-life scenario for perioperative, maternity and scrub nurses, the use of both imitation blood and blood platelets makes it realistic,” she said.

The educational focus will be on how to effectively manage a variety of theatre emergency scenarios.

“This will be an interactive challenge as we encourage nurses and midwives to think critically, act decisively, and respond effectively rather than passively receiving information,” said Ms Hinchen.

“In this environment nurses and midwives develop their ability to perform under pressure, enhancing their response capabilities over time.

“As we stage it to make it look authentic and with a clock ticking, the participants will understand the real-life pressure behind such haemorrhaging,” she said.

*According to Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists data, statistically between five and 15 per cent of Australian women may experience postpartum haemorrhage during childbirth.