The Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) is a specialized hospital unit designed to provide intensive medical care to critically ill infants, children, and adolescents. It is equipped to handle life-threatening conditions requiring close monitoring, advanced life support, and specialized treatments that cannot be provided in general paediatric wards.
The PICU is staffed by a multidisciplinary team including paediatric intensivists, nurses trained in critical care, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, and often paediatric subspecialists. Patients in the PICU may suffer from acute medical emergencies, postoperative complications, trauma, sepsis, respiratory failure, or complex congenital anomalies.
The care in PICU involves the use of advanced monitoring, mechanical ventilation, vasoactive medications, renal replacement therapy, and nutritional support. PICU plays a crucial role in stabilizing patients, preventing organ failure, and supporting recovery through coordinated, high-level medical interventions.
- Respiratory failure (e.g., pneumonia, bronchiolitis, asthma)
- Sepsis and septic shock
- Status epilepticus
- Postoperative care after major surgery (cardiac, neurosurgery, etc.)
- Multisystem organ failure
- STrauma and head injury
- Cardiac arrhythmias and congenital heart disease
