The Preliminary Care Unit (PCU) of the Lady Ridgeway Hospital (LRH) Colombo is a specialized unit dealing with the immediate management of critically ill and urgently ill paediatric patients presenting to our hospital. During COVID 19 times we had the opportunity to serve the nation as the frontline healthcare workers at Lady Ridgeway Hospital.
The team responsible for the above duties include 3 consultant Paediatricians, Medical officers, nursing officers and supportive staff. We also have a rotating team of Emergency Medicine Senior Registrars and Registrars who have appointments of 1-3 months at the PCU.
Dr. Michael Janz
Consultant Paediatrician
Dr. Viraj Jayasinghe
Consultant Paediatrician
Dr. R.R.C. Fernando
Consultant Paediatrician
- Our services include triaging and selecting critically ill and urgent patients for immediate and urgent management. These patients are seen immediately for resuscitation and immediate management.
- Following stabilization of these patients they will be transferred safely to an intensive care unit, ward High Dependency Unit or to a relevant ward. Of the Patients seen at the PCU only around 25% will need admission. The rest will be observed for a period of a few hours at the PCU while being periodically reassessed. If these patients are found to be well enough they will be discharged from the PCU with a follow up plan for review at the PCU or relevant clinic as deemed necessary.
- We provide our services 24 hours a day 365 days of the year.
- Our main objectives include.
- Triaging and selecting ill patients for immediate and urgent treatment.
- Stabilization and directing patients to the correct units for ongoing care.
- Reducing unnecessary admissions.
- ensuring proper follow up for patients with non-urgent problems.
- In addition of these duties, during the COVID 19 pandemic we have also been involved in seeing COVID 19 suspected patients and redirecting them safely to the isolation unit for testing.
Our unit is actively involved in teaching Emergency Medicine senior registrars and Registrars as well as Paediatric first year Registrars who do short appointments at the PCU. Medical students from the Colombo Medical Faculty and the Kothlalawala Defence University are taught at our unit. We mainly concentrate on teaching emergency management of paediatric patients with a special emphasis on simulation training covering teaching of technical and non- technical skills.
Our Unit consultants are involved in simulation training of medical officers and nurses of LRH at the monthly crisis resource management programme.They are also involved in teaching medical officers at the paediatric advanced Life support Course (APLS) conducted by the college of Paediatricians.