Ruby Hall ICU
Intensivist Dr. Prachee Sathe says:
People are aware that the heart is an important organ and requires intensive care management during an ailment. Over the time it has also been established that the heart is not the only important organ in the body. For various emergency situations we have to have a specific unit, but for all other medical emergencies, neurological patients, post operation observation or those patients with respiratory failure who require artificial support, all these types of patients are admitted in the ICU. I would like to tell you that in the present day, critical care is one such specialty where the patient is treated as a whole and not just as a superspecialty.

How do you deal with the Patients?
When a patient or for that matter any normal person is bedridden for a long time, the whole body weight is on a particular part of the body. That part then suffers from lack of proper circulation and will lead to breakdown, for e.g. the kidney may breakdown because of lack of circulation. It is however completely natural, but in order to prevent it we have to do a lot of things like changing the position of the patient at regular intervals or making the patients sit.

We also make sure that the patient is put on a water mattress or air mattress if necessary. We have all these facilities and if the patient is critically ill for a long time then it is not completely possible to prevent lack of circulation but we try to do our best. Changing positions is very important for chest problems, we give the patients physiotherapy so that the chest gets cleared. Sometimes we treat patients in prone positions that is completely flat on their tummy. We have 24 hour back up physiotherapy for patients in the ICU which means there are physiotherapists on the job for 24 hours. We have a facility for dialysis for the patient in the ICU as the patients here are sometimes very unstable and are not in a fit position to go to the dialysis room .We continue all the ICU treatments but also give them bedside support.

We have some special facilities like the transport of the patient for e.g. if we get a call from elsewhere to shift a critically ill patient from another hospital or from home to the ICU, I send a team of a doctor, a nurse and a ward boy along with a well equipped ambulance when it goes on the site to pick up the patient so that the patient will have treatment on the way. There have been a number of occasions in my experience when the ambulance has been kept waiting at the site till medical help is given to the patient and then the patient was transferred to the hospital .We also have the facility of transporting patients out of Pune .We have two ambulances for critically ill patients whereby artificial respiration can be given to the patient along with monitoring the heart while the patient is being transported.