Armidale Hospital

Armidale Hospital

Unit Services

Here at Armidale hospital we have an Intensive Care unit that has 5 beds that are used flexibly to accommodate Intensive Care, Coronary Care and High Dependency patients. Patients in the unit can be placed on monitors that show us their heart rate, ECG, Sats, blood pressure, respiratory & CO2 monitoring. We have (1) Drager Evita 4 ventilators, that can assist the patient in their breathing, plus we use CPAP/BiPAP,(non invasive ventilation).Until our unit is upgraded to a Level 4 unit, we mostly ventilate for 24hours, however if a patient requires long term ventilation, we transfer these patients to a Tertiary Hospital according to bed availability.

If the patient does not improve or needs the support of other specialised equipment such as dialysis (kidney machine), the patient will need to be transferred to another intensive care unit that provides these specialised services.

Patients that require specialised care – e.g. burns, major trauma, brain (neuro) surgery or heart (cardiac) surgery, may or may not come to our unit, and will be transferred as soon as possible to a specialised intensive care unit at a Tertiary Hospital according to bed availability

Children (16 years or younger) who need intensive care services also need special care and they too will be transferred to a specialised intensive care unit at another hospital.

Unit Staffing

There is a position for a Director of the ICU and recruitment for this position is underway. Currently the unit is run on a rotating roster between Staff Physician Locums & 1 VMO`s who visit the unit on a daily basis, however, when they are not in the unit they can be reached by telephone. We also have several CMO`s who cover the unit during the hours of 8pm-8am, seven (7) days a week, who work with the VMO`s as needed during these hours. There is also a Medical Resident and Medical Registrar who works mostly Monday to Friday with varying hours to cover all medical patients in ICU and HDU areas.

There are always 2 registered nurses per shift, with a senior nurse in charge of the unit every shift, however should a staff member not feel comfortable being in charge, usually a senior member of staff will go on call during this time. Nursing staff who work in the unit either have a ICU/Crit Care Certificate, or are working towards this.

The staffing levels are based on the acuity of the patient, for example ventilated patients require 1:1 ratio

Our unit also covers recovery for Level 4 surgery with 3 recovery beds, which is rostered By 1 staff member with backup from the ICU staff as required.

How to Get to Armidale Hospital

A map of the hospitals's location is below. A more detailed map can be found at the Whereis Online WebSite.