INTENSIVE CARE UNIT IN MULAGO HOSPITAL

The general ICU was the first to be established in Mulago Hospital to cater for all critically ill patients in the hospital. Because Mulago Hospital is a national referral hospital, the same ICU had to cater for all critically ill patients who needed intensive care from around the country.

In Uganda so many accidents occur due to reckless driving, bad roads and also bad drivers especially the motorcycles riders who ride without helmets! Therefore, a big percentage of critically ill patients are those with head injuries, before and after surgery. Intensive care unit also admits many patients with neurologic problems both surgical and medical especially after the elective operations.

When a team from Duke University came to carry out neuro surgery in 2007, among the nurses who came with the team was Karen March. We noted that she was knowledgeable in neuro nursing and was a very good teacher. We talked to her about our weaknesses and she offered to help us.

Karen took it upon herself to come twice a year to give us both lectures and practical instructions and this has led to great improvement in the management of not only the critically ill neurologic patients but all patients who come to the unit, both adults and children. We owe a lot to her. More patients walk out of ICU than before and much as other hospitals have established other ICUs, we still have many patients who are referred from those hospitals.

At the moment the hospital is under a massive renovation and a new wing will be built. ICU will have twenty two beds instead of twelve and eight beds as high dependency beds.

The challenge we have however, is lack of fully trained ICU nurses and this might pose a problem when a larger unit is opened.

Elizabeth Florence Naigaga Intensive Care Unit Mulago Natinal Referral and teaching Hospital, Uganda