The Nigerian postgraduate medical journal
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Niger Postgrad Med J · Dec 2001
Medical admission into the intensive care unit (ICU) of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital.
The paper presents patterns of medical admissions into the intensive care unit of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) over an eight-year period from September 1990 to August 1998. Medical admission constituted 15% out of which 1% received surgery for medical complications. Patients with neurological diseases recorded the highest number of admission most of them being for tetanus. ⋯ The overall mortality rate was 69% and it was observed that the ages of the patients did not appear to affect the outcome except in patients who were admitted for myocardial infarction and cardiogenic shock. This study emphasizes the need to evolve a system of health evaluation of predicting the survival index of individual patients. There is an urgent need for proper training, motivation of staff and maintenance of equipment used in the ICU.