Whangārei Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is a Level 2 Unit. This means the ICU offers intensive care to a level that provides ventilation, renal replacement therapy, and can support patients with multi-organ failure.
The Unit cares for both adults and children with medical, surgical and trauma diagnoses. ICU also offer High Dependency (HDU) care to these patients.
Patients who require more complex surgery or intensive care intervention are flown to a Level 3 Unit, usually the Department of Critical Care in Auckland and Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at Auckland.
ICU also operate a flight retrieval team from the unit. The team retrieves critically ill patients from Northlands peripheral hospitals and also transfers this category of patients to tertiary hospitals in Auckland and occasionally Waikato.
Critically ill patients are admitted under the Speciality Consultant, but the ICU Consultants direct care whilst the patient requires intensive care. Patients admitted as HDU have shared care, with the ICU doctors working with the speciality doctors to provide a step-down level of care.
The unit also offers an organ donation service with support from the transplant coordinators in Auckland.