New ICU expected to reduce deaths

Patrick Chitumba Midlands Bureau Chief
DEATHS related to life threatening illnesses and injuries are expected to drastically decline when an intensive care unit (ICU) is opened within a month at Gweru Provincial Hospital. The hospital has been operating without an intensive therapy unit which is critical to patients involved in road accidents or with life threatening illnesses.

Gweru Provincial Hospital superintendent Dr Fabian Mashingaidze yesterday said some patients were dying on the road as they were being transferred to hospitals which have the units in Harare or Bulawayo.

He said the new ICU would have three beds.

“Plans are at an advanced stage to open a new, state of the art ICU at Gweru Provincial Hospital.

“We had planned to open the ICU in April but the ventilators we ordered from China are still to arrive. But everything is in place and once the ventilators come, we will open the ICU,” said Dr Mashingaidze.

He said the Midlands State University had also engaged an anaesthetist to work in the ICU.

“The ICU cares for critical patients and transportation of such patients is very risky because the patients will be in need of special treatment right there. So referring them to Bulawayo or Harare was very risky and with this new ICU, we will save life,” he said.

Dr Mashingaidze said Gweru hospital is the biggest referral hospital in the province located on one of the busiest highways in the country – the Harare-Bulawayo highway and therefore the need to have an ICU.

“An ICU caters for patients with severe and life-threatening illnesses and injuries, which require constant, close monitoring and support from specialist equipment and medications in order to ensure normal bodily functions. Common conditions that are treated within ICUs include, trauma, multiple organ failure and sepsis,” he said.

“Patients may be transferred directly to an intensive care unit from an emergency department if required, or from a ward if they rapidly deteriorate, or immediately after surgery if the surgery is very invasive and the patient is at high risk of complications.”