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Catheterisation

Indications

Contraindications

Complications

Catheters

They have a diameter, which is measured in ‘French’. 12 French is quite small, whereas 48 French is massive! 1 French = 1/3 mm – so they vary in diameter from 3mm-16mm. 12F is that standard diameter – but male and female catheters are different! Female are shorter, and male are longer.
You can have 1,2 or 3 channels in a catheter. Two channels are the most common type. One channel allows fluid out, and the other allows a balloon to be filled.
They can be inserted either short term (~4weeks), or long term (>12 weeks). The length of insertion can affect which type of tubing is used – latex is generally used for short-term – ask for allergies. Silicone is used for long term.
Urinary Catheter with inflated balloon

Procedure

Never Force a catheter!
  1. Wash hands, put on apron, clean trolley with 70% alcohol wipe. Clean the surfaces of the trolley as well as the legs. (In OSCE probably just explain you would do this otherwise it would take too long). Get:
    1. Catheter pack
    2. Catheter
    3. Urine bag
    4. Instiller gel
    5. Water
    6. sterile gloves
    7. syringes x2 – these will probably come pre-packed – one for instiller gel, one for sterile water to fill catheter balloon with
    8. pot of aqua gel (the same stuff used for rectal examination)
    9.  when gathering your bits and pieces, put them ALL on the bottom tray. When you open them out, you can put them on the top tray.
  2. wash your hands again, put on some normal gloves
  3. Open the catheter pack being careful which bits you touch. Don’t lean over it (to prevent bits of fluff or whatever falling into it. This means you have to open one half, walk around it, then open the other half.
    1. If you need to move bits of the catheter pack, then you may be able to touch them if there is a bag for rubbish in the pack. If there is you can put your hand in the bag of rubbish, and this allows you to touch the various bits and pieces and move them around.
  4. Open the catheter bag, and the instiller gel. If things are pre-packed, you can open them out onto the blue sheet of the catheter pack. For other things with a non-sterile surface (e.g. the packet of water) then you just put these onto the tray, but not on the blue sheet.
  5. Clean the outside of the packet of water with an alcohol wipe, then pour water into the tray
  6. Wash your hands again!
  7. Put on the sterile gloves – don’t put the packet down on the sterile surface! You can use any old surface lying around. You can touch the ‘cuff’ of the gloves but not any other part with your bare hands. Once you have got one glove on, you can touch the outer surface of the other glove with your gloved hand.
  8. Ask the patient to lie on their back and expose themselves. Females need to bend their knees and spread the legs, males don’t.
  9. Put the kidney dish under the genitalia where you will later use it to catch urine
  10. For men, loop a bit of cloth round the penis to hold it up. The hand holding the penis is the NON-STERILE HAND. Using firm rather than gentle pressure help avoid an erection.Do not touch anything that is not sterile with the other hand. Roll back the foreskin and clean the four quadrants of the penis with the sterile water you poured out earlier, using the cleaning ball things. Use only one sweep with each bud, and sweep away from the tip.
    1. For women, use three buds, and wipe from front to back, three time, middle and two sides. Hold the labia apart with the thumb and forefinger of the non-dominant hand
  11. For men, make a ‘sterile field’ by tearing a hole in the sheet from the catheter pack. Put this over the penis. For women, just put the sterile sheet down between the woman’s legs.
  12. Put 1ml of gel on the end of the penis, and slowly inject another 10ml of gel up the urethra. This takes 3-4 minutes to act.
    1. For women, just inject 5ml of gel into the urethra
  13. Open the catheter – whatever you do: do not touch the catheter! Only take 1-2cm of the catheter out of the packet at once.
    1. Dip the end of the catheter into the aqua-gel as lubricant
    2. Start to insert the catheter gently. Never force it. At some point, urine will being to flow out of the catheter into the catheter packet. At the point put the kidney dish beneath the catheter packet.
    3. Having trouble? If the catheter does not seem to be passing very easily up the man’s urethra, the prostate may be to blame. In which case, you can ask the patient to cough, or you can try altering the position of the penis; try lifting it up, so that it ‘points’ more vertically.
  14. Fill the balloon up with sterile water – do not use saline stupid! About 10ml of fluid should be enough. Ask the patient if they feel any pain – if they do you probably aren’t in the bladder yet! Once you have filled it up, you can pull it back out, so it now rests in the neck of the bladder.
  15. Attach the catheter bag below the level of the bed, and retract the foreskin! Also remove your sterile field. Attach the catheter tube/bag tube to the abdomen or the thigh. Make sure there is no tension in the tube.
Tips:

Finishing off

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