The term “Critical Care” often strikes fear in the hearts of the best of us. But what is critical care and is it really a bane or a boon? Dr Saswati Sinha, Senior Consultant at the Critical Care Unit at AMRI Hospitals, Dhakuria sheds some light on the topic, and dispels the misconceptions surrounding it.

A patient who is either seriously ill and needs close monitoring and appropriate organ support. These are patients who may initially be brought to the emergency unit because they may have met with a major road traffic accident, or had a heart attack, or a stroke or even a very severe allergic reaction. What is common to these patients is that they need that extra monitoring and vital organ support because one or organs may be severely compromised from the inciting event . This is where the role of critical care comes in.

Critical Care refers to providing organ support and round-the-clock monitoring till such time as the patient’s body has recovered most or all of its normal functioning and the patient can be safely shifted to the ward. With the advancement of medical science, a variety of different devices exist today, which provide major organ support or real-time monitoring.

Critical care thrives on “team work “ and according to Dr S Sinha, patients at AMRI Hospitals Dhakuria, are cared for by an excellent team of trained staff in the critical care unit consisting of physicians, nurses, paramedical staff as well as critical care technicians, ably supported by consultants from all the other specialities who provide their valuable inputs and support as needed. The department is capable of taking care of these patients needs and providing timely and crucial organ support with procedures and devices such as Dialysis, Ventilators, ECMO and other necessary support as the need arises.

In fact, particularly in the post Covid era, it is safe to say that they efforts of the able Critical Care unit teams all across the world have brought many a patient back from the brink of death, who are now safely at home with their families. Critical care, especially when provided by teams as competent as the ones at the AMRI Hospitals, greatly increases the chances of a patient making a full recovery. The biggest morale booster for any Critical Care team is to send the sickest patients home in the best possible condition.

This report is published in a joint venture with AMRI Hospital