Incredibly, Australians have a 1 in 2 chance of requiring intensive care at some point during their lives, a reality that touches every Australian family, often more than once.
Intensive care is the life support of all major hospitals, providing essential support when patients are at their most vulnerable. Admission to intensive care could follow a sudden, life-threatening illness or accident, that has gut-wrenching effects on family and loved ones.
Intensive care teams typically treat patients facing life threatening conditions, such as:
- Major heart, lung or neurological issues, including severe heart attacks, pneumonia, asthma, cancer and stroke
- Injuries caused by major road or industrial accidents, burns, falls or assaults
- Complicated surgery of the abdomen, chest or head
- Organ transplants including heart, lung, liver or bone marrow transplants
Patients enter the ICU in one of two ways:
- Planned Admissions: Approximately 38% of all patients admitted to ICUs in Australia and 25% in New Zealand are planned admissions following elective surgeries that require specialised post operative care.
- Emergency Admissions: The vast majority of ICU patients arrive as emergency cases. They may come from the emergency department, hospital wards, or be transferred from another facility due to critical conditions like heart attacks, organ failure, severe infections, cancer, or accidents, all requiring life-saving interventions.
Without intensive care many of these patients would not survive.