What is ICU? It is the last checkpoint for patients

What is ICU, It’s not that patients are unwilling to go to the ICU. When their condition requires admission to the intensive care unit, they have almost no say in the matter, because most patients are in critical condition at this time. They are either unconscious and unable to make a decision, or are in critical condition and have no time to think.

1. ICU

ICU stands for Intensive Care Unit, which is a ward provided for some critically ill patients. The intensive care unit is a ward that integrates the best care, comprehensive treatment, integration of medical care and nursing, and early postoperative rehabilitation.

The ICU is equip with bedside monitors , central monitors , multi-functional respiratory therapy machines , anesthesia machines , electrocardiographs , defibrillators , pacemakers , infusion pumps , micro-syringes , first aid equipment required for endotracheal intubation and tracheotomy , or artificial hearts and lungs, and other equipment.

ICU gathers critically ill patients together and provides the best support in terms of manpower, material resources and technology in order to achieve good treatment results. ICU has a central monitoring station to directly observe all monitored beds. Each bed occupies a wide area and is separate by glass or curtains.

2. What are the characteristics of ICU?

Simply put, intensive care unit is just two words for ordinary people: expensive and heavy!

Because ICU wards are fully equipped with equipment and staff, and the patients themselves are between life and death, all overall treatment and nursing costs are significantly higher than those of ordinary wards, so the first characteristic of intensive care unit is that it is expensive.

Patients who need to be admit to the ICU are not ordinary patients. That is, ordinary wards or ordinary intensive care units can no longer solve the patients’ problems. If the patients do not go to the intensive care unit, the mortality rate will increase greatly, and it can even be say that they are certain to die. Therefore, the second impression that ICU gives people is that it is heavy.

Of course, in addition to these two characteristics, the biggest feature of intensive care unit is that it has a full range of rescue measures, or it can be say that the patient’s last hurdle, or that intensive care unit is a world on one side and heaven on the other. Most patients are on the verge of life and death, and can only be rescue with the full rescue of ICU, otherwise they can only wait for death. ICU is equip with a variety of conventional treatment equipment and a variety of rescue and treatment equipment. At the same time, it is equip with strong medical staff who are proficient in various rescue and critical patient care, providing software and hardware guarantees for timely, rapid and effective rescue of critical patients.

3. Why do some people say that patients would rather die than go to the ICU?

In fact, I said at the beginning that patients basically have no right to decide whether to go to the ICU or not. The decision of whether to go to the ICU is mostly make by the patient’s family. The most basic reason is determine by the characteristics of the ICU.

1. Expensive: ICU is almost the most expensive department in the hospital, with a daily cost ranging from a few thousand to tens of thousands or even more. If your family is average, you really can’t afford to stay there. It’s not about whether you want to stay there or not, but your economic conditions really don’t allow some people to stay there.

2. Severe: ICU is the last line of defense for patients. Many people think that if they cannot be cure after entering intensive care unit. They will be completely dead, so they are reluctant to go in, and still have a glimmer of hope that as long as they don’t go to ICU, there is hope. In fact, this is wrong logic. If the condition is such that patients need to go to intensive care unit, the later they go in, the more opportunities for rescue will be miss, and the condition will become more and more serious.

3. No companionship: Not all patients admitt to the intensive care unit are in a coma, some are awake, and these patients either cannot leave their families; or many elderly people say they would rather die in front of their families. But family members are not allow to accompany them in the intensive care unit; or they cannot accept pressure and loneliness; etc. These may be the reasons why the patients themselves are unwilling to go to the ICU.

4. You have to go in when you need to.

If economic factors are not consider, I think as long as there is an indication for intensive care unit, you should go to the ICU, after all, there is more hope. And going to the ICU does not mean there is no hope, you can only wait to die. The improvement rate of ICU patients is 80-90%, and the mortality rate is generally around 10%. Therefore, most patients who enter the intensive care unit can get better after comprehensive treatment and care.

For some critically ill patients, if they are not admit to the intensive care unit, then it can be say that their condition will only get worse and worse, and they may even die in a very short period of time. For example: patients with severe trauma, after major surgery, patients undergoing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, patients with multiple organ failure, severe shock, sepsis and poisoning, multiple injuries, patients with complex injuries, heart disease with serious complications, various postoperative critically ill patients, patients with severe water, electrolyte, osmotic pressure, acid-base imbalance, patients with endocrine crisis such as thyroid, adrenal gland, pituitary, and those who need monitoring and intensive treatment before and after organ transplantation.

After treatment and care in the intensive care unit, most of these patients can get better and be move to general wards until they are discharged. However, if they do not go to the ICU, most of them will die due to worsening of their condition or lack of treatment.

In short, the ICU is indeed the last line of defense for patients. As long as doctors and patients cooperate well and medical staff devote their wholehearted efforts, they can indeed fight against death.