Nawaloka Hospital opens PIC Unit

Friday, 4 January 2013 03:26 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Nawaloka Hospital has opened Sri Lanka’s first private Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), to make ‘critical care’ available to infants and children from one month old onwards.

This is further supported by the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) which is primarily for premature babies, as well as infants up to one month old.

One key feature of Nawaloka Hospital’s new PICU is the high level of personalised care on offer, with an entire unit comprising of four beds and trained experienced paediatric nurses to care for them.

This is in comparison with paediatric facilities available island wide, both Government and otherwise, where it is not uncommon for one, not always highly experienced, nurse to cater to one or more wards, which comprises a large number of patients.

Further, while at Nawaloka Hospital, parents can consult any paediatric consultant, who can be accessed at the patient’s bedside if the need arises.

In addition, Nawaloka Hospital also has the unique distinction of being the sole Sri Lankan private health care hospital to be recognised with the coveted ‘baby-friendly hospital’ status, awarded to the hospital by both the World Health Organisation and the United Nation Children’s Fund.

The Nawaloka Hospital PICU is not only a very significant undertaking for the hospital, but also being an absolute need, especially since this institution has already seen a high demand for PICU level services as a result of potential dengue cases.

At the same time, children having epileptic status and asthmatic attacks are also other groups that need a higher degree of specialised attention or ‘critical care’, both of which are now available at the PICU.