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.


One more important aspect of the Ruby Hall ICU critical care section is that it has to be multidisciplinary management because weak patients may require surgical attendance as well as investigations like brain scan or the MRI scan. Transporting them from the ICU to the other departments is also risky when they are on a ventilator, or when they have low blood pressure. Patients from the ICU require shifting to operation theatres at these times we shift the patients along with the bed so that there is least disturbance to the patient and the patient is directly put on the operation table. We have well trained nurses with a ratio of one nurse to two patients in all three shifts. The nurses are trained at our Nursing center.

We also have a large number of doctors working here at the ICU, there are close to twenty two junior doctors, 8 consulting doctors between coronary care and non cardiac ICU and every night there is one consultant on the premises. We have a total of fifty six beds with twenty eight beds in the cardiac section and the rest in the non cardiac section .This is because in our society the number of cardiac patients is on the rise especially with the modern style of living. Cardiac illness is not always equivalent to heart attacks. There are many different types of cardiac illnesses.

The special facilities we offer are that we assure you that oxygen will never fail and that compressed air and artificial breathing will always be supplied. Special care has been taken to ensure that each bed has a minimum space of a hundred and twenty square feet, which is according to international standards. This is necessary because if the patient starts deteriorating, resuscitation can be offered from all sides. This is also necessary to maintain a hygienic environment for the patient. If compared to western countries it has been observed that the patients admitted to the ICU are of a much younger age category. This is because the number of road accidents is on the rise and people are prone to infectious diseases. It is essential for Indian hospitals to have good ICU’s so that productive lives can be saved in an emergency. In conclusion it is very rewarding to work in the intensive care even though at times it can be stressful.