Healthcare-associated infections are infections acquired in hospital, meaning that they were not present before admission. In intensive care, they affect around one patient in five on average. They are therefore a common complication and cannot always be prevented.
Visits, including visits from children, do not expose visitors to a risk of acquiring a healthcare-associated infection, provided that the recommended precautions are followed.
Treatment-related, or iatrogenic, complications are complications caused by the therapies being used. Although every machine and medicine used in intensive care may be necessary to sustain and protect the patient’s life, no treatment is entirely without risk. Because ICU patients are particularly vulnerable, they may be more likely to develop complications, and those complications can be especially serious. This is why the healthcare team reassesses the need for every treatment and therapy each day, so that the patient can be “weaned” from anything they no longer need before a complication occurs.
An intensive care stay is always a major traumatic experience for a patient: confronting their own vulnerability or even mortality, feeling powerless and unable to control the situation, losing independence, experiencing pain and discomfort, being physically restrained to prevent harm, developing ICU delirium with vivid hallucinations, dreams or nightmares, and having gaps in their memory. All of this can have a major impact on psychological wellbeing. It is therefore important to minimise distress as much as possible, provide the most personalised support possible and help the patient understand what has happened to them, including by writing an ICU diary for them.
Please be assured that the healthcare team does everything possible to limit these risks. Staff are trained to follow hygiene measures rigorously, and these procedures are continually updated in line with official recommendations.