Comprehensive and Fully Integrated Critical Care Unit

Caring for people who are seriously ill has become a large and complex part of health care and requires many specialist skills to ensure we provide the best possible care for some of our sickest and most vulnerable patients.

As a tertiary care centre, Health City is the regional referral centre for high-level medical care.

The Health City Cayman Islands’ critical care unit is a synchrony of doctors of various specialties, including cardiology, cardiothoracic surgery, pulmonology, internal medicine, neurology, neurosurgery, orthopedics, medical and surgical gastroenterology, anesthesiology, and more.

Our comprehensive and fully integrated Critical Care Services provide highly specialized, intensive clinical support and high dependency care for adults and children. We look after patients with a full range of conditions, including those needing catheterization lab intervention or major surgery.

The highly specialized treatment we provide combines intensive nursing and the latest medical technology to support our patients’ complex needs. This may include assisted ventilation with life support machines using specialized equipment to support the functions of the kidneys or using pumps to deliver essential drugs and to support the heart and circulation.

All critical care areas can be accessed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, so we can respond to cardiac emergencies whenever they occur, and you can be reassured that expert staff is always on hand to offer care, advice, and support.

The Intensive Care Unit

There are 24 intensive care beds (level three) at Health City Cayman Islands and eight high dependency beds (level two).

The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Health City Cayman Islands is situated on the ground floor directly across from the operating theatre complex.

The ICU is comprised of the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) which has a capacity of 11 adult beds; the Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU) with a capacity of 10 adult/pediatric beds; and the Post-anesthesia Recovery Unit which has four adult/pediatric beds.

The Intensive Care Unit cares for any patient in the hospital who needs a higher, more specialized level of care; enables our clinical teams to improve patient safety; and incorporates both surgical, general (medical) and High Dependency Unit (HDU) beds in one place.

Having critically ill patients cared for in one area by highly trained specialist nurses and resident doctors who are immediately available has been shown to save lives, as well as improving the quality of patient care and the whole patient experience. At Health City, we have 1:1 nursing ratio for level 3 care and 1:2 ratio for level 2 care.

Intensive Care at Health City has state of art facilities that can support the critically ill. This includes four negative pressure isolations and four positive pressure isolation rooms; advanced hemodynamics monitoring systems (PICCO, Vigelio, CCO); advanced ventilators - including noninvasive ventilation and high-flow nasal oxygen; intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP); extracorporeal membrane oxygenator (ECMO); continuous renal replacement therapy; sustained low efficiency hemodialysis (SLED); plasma exchange; plasmapheresis; electroencephalogram(EEG); transesophageal echocardiogram (TEE); bronchoscopy; point of care ultrasound; and blood gas analyzer with co-oximetry.

The Intensive Care Unit is staffed by a team of highly trained intensive care consultants and staff nurses caring for the needs of the critically ill. The critical care team also oversees the care of critically ill patients in the High Dependency Unit.