Neurospine Hospital & Revive Critical Care
Intensive Care
Home / Intensive Care
WHAT IS INTENSIVE CARE?
Intensive care refers to the specialised treatment given to patients who are acutely unwell and require critical medical care.
An intensive care unit (ICU) provides the critical care and life support for acutely ill and injured patients.
Unless you are an emergency admission, you will need a referral from your doctor or specialist to be admitted to ICU.
ICU equipment
It can be a frightening and uncertain time for you, family and friends to see people you care about being monitored and supported by machines.
In ICU you will see many patients connected to a heart monitor, others will be supported with breathing assistance from artificial ventilators, be on dialysis machines and receiving a variety of intravenous infusions via tubes and drips.
Be prepared to see lots of lines, tubes, wires and monitoring equipment. Almost all ICU equipment uses alarms to let staff know about a change in a patient’s condition. Not all equipment alarms signal an emergency situation.
Who is cared for in ICU?
Patients may have a planned admission following surgery, an unexpected admission after an accident or be admitted because of a sudden and critical deterioration to their health.
ICU teams are multi-disciplinary, made up of highly skilled intensive care nurses, doctors and specialists trained in providing critical care for patients with a variety of medical, surgical and trauma conditions.
Some hospital ICUs specialise in providing care for particular health conditions or injuries including:
- major trauma
- severe burns
- respiratory failure
- organ transplants
- complex spinal surgery
- cardiothoracic surgery.