NOTIONS AND MISBELIEFS ABOUT ICU

As the days are passing by,

I realized that there are so many notions and misbeliefs about ICU, specially in our country, prevailing in society and non medical persons' minds,
leading to mistrust and miscommunication between Doctors and Patients' relatives and those so-called well wishers with extra ordinary knowledge - about these concepts which are more of misconceptions, always eager to share their expert opinions.


Few most common of them are,
'Patient is dead already and is kept on ventilator for monitory gains by doctor / hospital'

'Patient once kept on ventilator will never come out of ICU'

'Patient can not die and would not be declared dead because ventilator is On and is running the whole body'


Here I would like to clarify few of these things, not useful for medicos of course, who are already knowing the facts and simplest fact that, dead body can not be kept in ICU on any number of machines, ventilator only supports your lungs and indirectly helps to improve respiration and oxygenation so that other organs or lungs itself get time to heal. No doctor / hospital is doing that, as per my knowledge, except patient is brain dead or at terminal illness of life and relatives have not understood it properly and are not ready to with draw the supports.

 
In 2016, Data were analyzed for 4038 adult patients from 120 different ICUs, where Mortality rate in ICU was around 18.1% which included all age / sex / area and also from various medical / surgical conditions leading to 'death or terminal illness and were discharged home and died'. (As International standards, US had death ratio 10 to 28% in ICU, including both private and government sectors) this rate is however affected by many factors, which makes it quite complicated to calculate it perfectly, including one of the most practical factor is Expenses per Day in ICU - which is by large variable and can be between 1500 to 1,00,000 per day in different hospitals and that factor is to be decided by relatives, how much they are affording and willing to spend on their loved ones, doctor / hospital can guide them and give estimate but can never give exact expenses' details because things in ICU are very dynamic and variable on day to day basis.


More and more writings / readings / videos / awareness campaigns are required to clarify misconceptions about ICUs all over India and are needed to be spread so that more and more people understand these things. I hope some day there will be no such trust issues and things will be done in favor of PATINETS and not any one else.