Soon, HDUs for women patients needing intermediate care

LUCKNOW: Now high dependency units (HDUs) will help treat more women coming to the gynaecology department of government medical colleges in the state.

HDUs have better facilities than general/private wards but less than ICUs. There are patients who do not need ICU care but can’t be shifted to general wards too. Hence they are unnecessarily kept in ICUs. Such patients who require intermediate care will now be shifted to HDUs.

“Such HDUs are functional in gynaecology departments in Gujarat, Delhi and medical colleges in south India,” said Dr Swapna Das, general manager (maternal health) in the National Health Mission, who has studied the model in other parts of the country.

The colleges to have these HDUs first include Agra, Gorakhpur, Jhansi, Aligarh, Kanpur medical colleges and King George’s Medical University in Lucknow. To start with, there will be six-bed HDUs in each of these medical institutes.

Dr Das said that the idea was to facilitate more patients, keeping ICU care for those who needed it. In an HDU, there would be one staff nurse for two beds in an eight-hour shift, apart from the doctor and anaesthetist.

In ICU, each patient has a nurse.

“Once functional, the number of beds can be increased along with the paramedical staff. This will help admit more patients in the ICU,” said Dr Das. A proposal for this had been made and soon the HDUs would be developed in medical colleges, she said. Why are they needed HDUs are needed to ensure more women get medical care against the existing number of beds. As there is a situation when patients become stable but can’t be transferred out of the ICU, they continue to occupy ICU beds till they are well enough to go to a private/general ward. If HDUs are introduced, patients who do not need ICU care but can’t go to general ward may be shifted there and additional patients can be admitted to ICUs.