When your child has a critical illness, serious injury, or surgery, you want the highest level of care available provided by a team of experts in pediatric critical care medicine. Although no parent wants to face such difficult circumstances, you can rely on the compassionate environment of the Bon Secours St. Mary's Hospital's Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) to provide that level of care for children who need it most.

Our PICU is an 8-bed, state-of-the-art unit that offers around-the-clock care delivered by a staff that has been specially trained in pediatrics and critical care. The PICU treats many serious conditions, including asthma, acute respiratory failure, severe infections, seizures, some complications of diabetes, and multiple organ dysfunction. In addition, our team provides perioperative care for children at risk for postoperative pain and complications in cooperation with surgical specialists, including pediatric surgery, orthopaedics, ENT, and urology. The combination of our highly trained team of specialists and facilities in the PICU enables us to provide care and monitoring of your child's status during the provision of a variety of therapies including mechanical ventilation (breathing machines) and administration of medications that need close medical supervision when given.

Your child will be cared for by a multidisciplinary team of medical professionals. Board-certified Pediatric Intensivists, who have received specialized training in pediatric critical care, oversee and coordinate the medical care of all PICU patients including consultation on all surgical patients 24 hours a day. Children with complex disease may be followed throughout their hospital stay by these same physicians to ensure continuity of care until discharge. The Intensivists will participate in discharge planning to ensure that your child's care continues seamlessly after hospital discharge. In addition, Pediatric Hospitalists, hospital-based pediatricians, work closely with the Intensivists and are in-house 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Nurses with training and experience in pediatric critical care will provide the minute-to-minute bedside care of your child in the PICU. Other personnel who may provide care to your child include respiratory therapists, radiologists and technicians, physical therapists, occupational therapists, dieticians, pharmacists, and child life specialists. Spiritual support is available to patients and family members from our Pastoral Care Department.

In the PICU, our focus is the health of the children we care for, but we know that having a child in the hospital is a stressful, uncertain time. That's why we try to ease the burden on the parents and other relatives of our patients by providing services like cots for overnight visits, showers, washers and dryers, and beverages and snacks. Parents are allowed to visit 24 hours a day and one parent may sleep at your child's bedside overnight.

It's normal for both you and your child to feel frightened or unsure at a time like this. That's why we do everything we can to make the experience go as smoothly—and safely—as possible. At Bon Secours St. Mary's Hospital, you can rest assured that your child will receive the best and most compassionate care available from the staff in our PICU.