Specialised unit helps to wean patients off the ventilator earlier

Early rehabilitation enables their overall hospital stay to be cut by average of 81 days

- Judith Tan

Shipyard engineer Jaime Mendoza, 57, suffered a stroke in September 2020.

The stroke affected his brain and his ability to breathe, so he was given a tracheostomy, where a tube is inserted into his windpipe to allow air into his lungs. He was kept in the intensive care unit (ICU) for about a month before he was moved to the general ward.

The family had been out celebrating his daughter's birthday when he suddenly felt unwell and was hurried by taxi to the emergency department of Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH).

"He was in (the) hospital for the next three months. He came home for a month before being hospitalised at Ang Mo Kio Rehabilitation Centre from March to May 2021," his wife, Mrs Edna Mendoza, 57, told The Straits Times.

His seven-month stay, first at TTSH and then at the rehabilitation centre, would have been cut by close to three months - or an average of 81 days for such patients - if he had been taken directly from the ICU to the Ventilatory Rehabilitation Unit (VRU).

Patients with conditions and injuries that affect breathing, such as head injury, stroke, lung diseases, heart attack, pneumonia and spinal cord injuries, would do better when they are moved directly from the ICU to a specialised rehabilitation unit once their underlying conditions are stable, said Dr Lui Wen Li, a consultant with the department of rehabilitation medicine at TTSH.