Discover the old West PAGE 38 33 - Sunday, October 1, 1989 - North Shore News TECHNOLOGY, PERSONNEL KEY TO SUCCESS LGH's intensive care unit one of A TEENAGE girl with head injuries suffered in a skiing mishap near Whistler. A young man whose motorcycle crashed on the Upper Levels Highway. A hang-glider who was unable to avoid a North Shore mountain. A 34-year-old lawyer who suffered a cardiac arrest at work. An elderly woman desperately ill following major cancer surgery. All these people are back in their community today, getting on with their lives. But their stories would not have had such happy endings if it weren’t for the Inten- sive Care Unit at Lions Gate Hos- pital. “There isn’t a better equipped ICU in the province,’’ says Dr. Warren Mayo, Director of the LGH Intensive Care Unit. ‘‘A few years ago only a major teaching hospital in Vancouver could have handled very intensive care cases, but mow Lions Gate can provide the same level of care.” Recognition of the level of care provided at LGH is reflected in the hospital's recent designation as one of five Regional Trauma Centres in the Lower Mainland. A Regional Trauma Centre must have a 24-hour trauma team of highly skilled staff and the sophisticated emergency, intensive care and surgical facilities to deal with badly-injured patients. “Over the last five years, Lions Gate has matured into a very pro- gressive community hospital, says Dr. Mayo. ‘‘A first-class Intensive Care Unit, even with the very best staff and equipment, can’t func- tion in a vacuum. At Lions Gate our ICU works with and comple- ments excellent services such as the radiology, laboratory and surgical departinents.”” Dr. Mayo cites the new Cardiac Catherization Laboratory, opened by the Minister of Health in Feb- ruary, as an example of the quality of service available to the North Shore community at its hospital. And the community itself has played an important role in mak- ing the six-bed ICU a first-class facility. During a fund-raising campaign last year, individuals. organiza- tions and groups on the North Shore donated $120,000 to pur- chase state-of-the-art Marquette bedside monitors for each bed and a portable unit that can accom- pany a patient being transported to the operating room, or to imaging services for X-rays or CT- Scans. An earlier fund-raising effort equipped the unit with Stryker crit- ical care beds. Technology is an important component of an intensive care unit’s ability to help patients who a few short years ago probably would not have had much hope for recovery. But, Dr. Mayo is quick to point out, the most sophisticated techno- logy in the worid is only as effec- tive as the people who operate it. The unit’s intensivists, two now and a third that will be added in the fall, available 24 hours a day, are physicians who specialize in critical care medicine. Intensive care nursing is inten- sive in every meaning of the word. Nurses work with their patients on a one-to-one basis for a 12-hour shift, continuously monitoring vital signs, watching each breath of a patient on a ventilator, always alert for the tiniest indication of a change in the fragile condition of their charge. “If this is the nursing area for you, nothing else will do,’’ says By JO DUNAWAY Contributing Writer ICU head nurse Donn Still, who, in his 24 years at Lions Gate, has seen the area progress from a heavy care ward to a high-tech, state-of-the-art Intensive Care Unit. “Nothing is routine here,’’ he said. ‘‘Things can happen very quickly and change from one minute to the next. A critical care nurse has to be able to instantly bring education, skill and experi- ence into play and make very quick decisions. There is a lot of challenge and responsibility and enormous satisfaction in making the best possibe use of your abili- ties.’* The intensive nature of one-on- one care also forms a strong bond between nurse, the patient and family, says Still. Many elements combine to make LGH’s Intensive Care unit what it is, says Dr. Mayo, a native of North Vancouver who has practis- ed in critical care and trauma units in Canada and New Zealand, in- cluding Vancouver’s St. Paul’s Hospital and Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto. He lists the co-operation and initiative of both the hospital and nursing administrations among the reasons for the excellence of the LGH ICU. Evidence of their commitment to the continuing high quality of care NEWS photo Yom Buriey SALLY BURKE, RN, and nursing student David MacDonald listen to a patient’s Dreathing sounds in the In- tensive Care Unit at Lions Gate Hospital. provided by the unit is seen in the major re-equipment phase that in- stalled the Marquette monitors and the introduction last year of an in- novative program, in collaboration with the B.C. Institute of Techno- logy, to train Registered Nurses for work in Intensive Care. An Invitation to Watch M.1. HUMMEL ARTIST Master Painter OAKRIDGE CENTRE 266-6411 Monday, Qct. 2 from 10-1 & 2-5 LANSDOWNE PARK 270-1228 Tues., Oct. 3 from 10-1 & 2-5 «Mr, Bernhard Rauscher will gladly answer your collecting questions & autograph all your Goebel figurines. FREE DRAW fora Hummel figurine ‘*For a specialist in intensive care and internal medicine, | itave the best job in the province,”’ Dr. Mayo. says Advertisement WHAT’S IN YOUR NAME? 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