The Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at Zulekha Hospital Dubai is a specialised unit that provides care for infants, children and adolescents who become critically ill or injured. PICU is a 24-hour service that operates 365 days a year. The unit caters to children with different clinical presentations including those who need ventilatory support, intensive monitoring, who present with uncontrolled seizures, surgical cases pre and post-operative, with unstable heart conditions, post interventional cardiac procedures, diabetic complications and worsening kidney function.

The unit is staffed with a team of consultants, specialists and nurses with significant experience in Paediatric critical care in various countries. The children in PICU, based on their clinical needs, receive regular input from our multidisciplinary team including paediatric surgeon, consultant paediatric nephrology, consultant paediatric interventional cardiology, paediatric neurologist, neurosurgeon, interventional radiologist, thoracic surgeon, physiotherapist, psychologist and dietician.

Our 24-hour paediatric retrieval service team comprised of specialist, PICU nurse and paramedic stabilizes children at referring hospital and transfer them to our unit round the clock.

We treat children with

• Severe asthma, bronchiolitis, pneumonia, pleural effusion and empyema
• Sepsis
• Meningitis, encephalitis and intractable seizures
• Wide range of paediatric surgical cases pre and post-operative
• Congenital heart disease requiring non-surgical interventional procedures
• Neurosurgical conditions

The specialised services we provide include

• Invasive and non-invasive ventilation
• Central line and surgical line insertion
• Chest tube insertion
• Standard EEG and Video EEG
• Interventional cardiology procedures like cardiac catheterisation for congenital heart disease, device closure of ASD, VSD, PDA, balloon dilatation of aortic and pulmonary valves, stenting of aortic coarctation and pacemaker insertion
• Peritoneal dialysis
• Total Parenteral Nutrition
• 24-hour access to MRI, CT scan and interventional radiology services