Anaesthesia in an Australian private hospital: the consumer's view.

A survey of the patients' view of anaesthesia was carried out in a medium-sized metropolitan private hospital. The study was performed using a postoperative questionnaire. A two-week period was investigated, and data was obtained from 121 of 124 patients anaesthetised during that period. The results showed a very high degree of satisfaction with the anaesthetic services provided, although specific questioning revealed many minor complaints. The results are compared with previous studies done in public hospitals and show that from the patients' perspective, there were fewer complaints than have been noted in the other studies.