Much has been said around Intensive Care Units (ICU) as we enter our second major outbreak in New Zealand. This is because critical care is one of the key areas that we are trying to protect when officials say that the function of lockdowns and vaccination is to protect the
Shane Reti: ICU is the critical point in coronavirus
Recalculating this could significantly reduce the reported capacity.
The number of resourced ICU beds varies hugely across DHBs, from four at Lakes, West Coast and Hutt Valley to 94 at Auckland DHB. However, what needs to be taken into account when assessing capacity is the average level of occupancy before coronavirus strikes. People still get kidney failure and cardiac failure quiet aside from coronavirus. By way of example the day that the current outbreak was announced the Department of Critical Care at Auckland DHB was already at 120 per cent capacity.
My concern is also for the small regional DHBs. In the first month of this outbreak lakes DHB had all four standing ICU beds occupied many times even without having any positive coronavirus cases.
We have an urgent need now to fast-track onshore and offshore ICU nurses through immigration and we need to build new ICU infrastructure. None of this is easy but in the context of $500m economic damage from lockdowns, increasing ICU capacity seems to look a bit easier.