From South Florida Caribbean News

CAYMAN ISLANDS – Health City Cayman Islands now operates a Level 3 Trauma Center, following the commissioning of its newly expanded Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) in early December 2018.

On Monday, December 10, a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the tertiary care medical facility in East End, Grand Cayman, which is owned and operated by Indian health care giant Narayana Health, officially opened the unit.

The opening followed a nine-month expansion project which increased the Health City Intensive Care Unit’s trauma and triage capabilities.

The unit now has greater capacity to handle more complex cases and patients with multiple medical issues, and provide more comprehensive management of emergency cases and complex trauma situations.

The hospital’s previous intensive care and triage areas have been transformed to become a 21-bed center, which provides 24-hour immediate coverage by emergency medicine physicians and ensures the prompt availability of general surgeons and anesthesiologists, in keeping with international guidelines.

Dr. Devi Shetty, Chairman of Narayana Health and Founder of Health City Cayman Islands, spoke at the MICU commissioning event, where he reinforced the hospital’s commitment to providing world-class medical care to patients in the Americas.

Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty (file photo)

“We built Health City with the idea of transforming health care in the Western Hemisphere,” he said. “The core of our vision is to make high-level health care more accessible and affordable for more people, who may previously have not had this access. The expansion of our Intensive Care Unit at Health City is another step in the ongoing development of our services to benefit the people of the Cayman Islands, the surrounding region, and international patients from further afield.”

Dr. Ashutosh Raghuvanshi, Vice Chairman, Managing Director and Group CEO of Narayana Health, said the group is committed to keeping Health City at the forefront of medical care in all of its service areas: “The new MICU brings Health City Cayman Islands to the level of an international trauma center, comparable to those found in much larger countries. We remain focused on our goal of making the Cayman Islands the premier medical destination in the region, and Health City a center of medical excellence and advancement internationally.”

Prior to the expansion, the Health City Cayman Islands Intensive Care Unit (ICU) suite comprised 17 ICU beds, a three-bed triage unit and a four-bed recovery unit. Staffed around the clock, the Health City ICU has the capabilities for triage and management of acute patients who may have life-threatening conditions.

The facility has the full range of emergency services for patient resuscitation and life-saving interventions, including ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) resuscitation, which is available in only a few centers in the Caribbean.

“Health City Cayman Islands continues to fulfill our mission to transform the delivery of health care in the Caribbean and beyond. As we expand our intensive care services, we are committed to providing the highest level of medical care to local and international patients,” Dr. Shetty said.

Clinical Director Dr. Binoy Chattuparambil revealed that the new expanded ICU complex will provide segregation between medical and surgical patients in order to ensure the highest standard of infection control protocols and pathways. This effort includes four negative pressure isolation rooms: two each in the Medical Intensive Care Unit and Surgical Intensive Care Unit to contain and treat infection cases.

This development aligns the new intensive care and trauma center with both U.S. and U.K. guidelines and standards.

Additionally, the triage area in the expanded ICU complex has now become a four-bed unit with closer proximity to two dedicated resuscitation beds next to a dedicated Operating Theatre (OT).

Dr. Chattuparambil said: “This structure of triage and MICU with closer proximity to OT not only ensures quick clinical response, but also allows hospital staff to implement internationally accepted quality checks and controls – thereby enabling patients to recuperate faster.”

These specific expansions make the Health City ICU a Level 3 Intensive Care Unit – which is defined as a tertiary referral unit for intensive care patients capable of providing comprehensive critical care, including complex multisystem life support for an indefinite period. All patients admitted to a Level 3 Intensive Care Unit are referred for management to the attending intensive care specialist.

Dr.  Shetty emphasized that Health City’s newly expanded MICU will work hand in hand with the Cayman Islands Health Services Authority (HSA), as well as private physicians, to ensure that local patients receive the best and most timely emergency treatment available on island.

He said: “Since inception, Health City and the HSA have jointly established standard protocols in place for the triage, medical management and coordination of care for patients with emergent clinical diagnoses, with the joint goal being to ensure optimal treatment and best patient outcomes.”

Dr. Shetty noted that with the addition of the MICU and expansion of its trauma capabilities, “Heath City will serve as a complement and expansion to the current ICU and trauma capabilities offered in the Cayman Islands, and will provide an alternative to off-island trauma care.”

Beyond providing emergency and trauma services to patients living in and visiting the Cayman Islands, Health City’s expanded ICU center will also receive the growing number of incoming air ambulance transfers from other countries.

For more on this story go to: https://sflcn.com/health-city-cayman-islands-expands-intensive-care-unit-capabilities/