Continuous monitoring
Heart rhythm, blood pressure, oxygen, breathing, urine output and consciousness tracked without interruption, so deterioration is caught in the hours before it becomes a crisis.
24 hour referralsMainland Hospital, Yaba · Part of SkyHigh Medical Centre
Someone is watching
every minute.
A dedicated intensive care and haemodialysis unit at 1 Mainland Hospital Road, Yaba. Continuous monitoring, ventilation, organ support and dialysis in the same place, so a critically ill patient who needs both does not have to be moved across Lagos to get it.
What this unit is
An intensive care unit is a staffing ratio, not a room full of machines.
What separates intensive care from a well equipped ward is that somebody is watching continuously, and that the failing function of an organ can be taken over until it recovers. The equipment is the visible part. The watching is the part that saves lives.
Organ support
Breathing supported by a ventilator, blood pressure held up by drugs given through a drip, and dialysis when the kidneys stop. The machines buy the time in which treatment can work.
Dialysis on the same site
A critically ill patient who needs dialysis does not have to be moved. The dialysis unit and the intensive care beds are in the same place.
Open to referrals
We take patients from other hospitals across Lagos. Call before transfer and we will confirm availability honestly rather than leaving you to arrive and find out.
Services
Critical care, renal replacement, and the care that continues after both.
Every service has its own page explaining what it involves, why it is being done, and what families should expect to see.
Critical care
Intensive Care
Continuous monitoring, organ support and one to one nursing for patients who are critically ill or at risk of becoming so.
Read the full page
Renal and dialysis
Haemodialysis
Chronic programme dialysis, emergency dialysis and dialysis for patients who are critically ill, in a unit sited alongside intensive care.
Read the full page
Renal and dialysis
Chronic Dialysis Programme
A scheduled place on the unit for patients with established kidney failure, with a fixed slot, a named team and structured review.
Read the full page
Renal and dialysis
Emergency Dialysis
Urgent dialysis at any hour for acute kidney injury, dangerous potassium, fluid overload and poisoning, with referrals accepted from any hospital.
Read the full page
Renal and dialysis
Vascular Access
Fistula creation, catheter insertion and access surveillance, because dialysis is only as good as the access it runs through.
Read the full page
Critical care
Ventilator and Respiratory Support
Oxygen therapy, non invasive ventilation and full mechanical ventilation for patients whose lungs cannot meet the body's demands.
Read the full page
Critical care
Sepsis and Severe Infection
Recognition, resuscitation and source control for sepsis, where the first hours determine much of the outcome.
Read the full page
Critical care
Post Operative Critical Care
Close monitoring in the hours after major surgery, when most avoidable complications either happen or are prevented.
Read the full page
Critical care
Cardiac and Neurological Monitoring
Continuous monitoring of the heart rhythm and circulation, and structured checks on the brain after stroke, head injury and seizures.
Read the full page
Continuing care
Nutrition Support
Feeding critically ill patients who cannot eat, because recovery from critical illness is impossible without it.
Read the full page
Continuing care
Palliative and End of Life Care
When cure is no longer possible, comfort, dignity and honesty become the treatment.
Read the full pageNot sure what your patient needs?
Describe the case on the phone and the team will tell you whether we can take them, what to send ahead and how quickly we can be ready.
For families
The information nobody has time to give you at the bedside.
If your relative has just been admitted, you are frightened, you have been asked to wait, and you do not know what any of the machines do. These pages were written for exactly that moment.
What happens when your relative is admitted to intensive care
The first few hours, why you may be asked to wait, and what the team is doing while you do.
The machines at the bedside, explained plainly
What each piece of equipment does, in language nobody uses at the bedside but everybody needs.
How to get clear information from the clinical team
Who to ask, when to ask, and the specific questions that produce useful answers.
The words you will hear, and what they actually mean
A plain glossary of the terms used at the bedside and on the ward round.
Looking after yourself while someone you love is in intensive care
This is a marathon. Families who exhaust themselves in week one are no use in week three.
Visiting the unit
Hours, how many people may be at the bedside, arrangements for children, and what to do before you walk in.
Outcomes
Patients other hospitals had given up on have walked out of this unit.
Critical care is judged on one thing, which is whether people survive it. Families arriving here are usually terrified, and often arriving after being turned away somewhere else.
We would rather show you what happened to real patients than publish a percentage. Survival figures depend entirely on how sick the patients admitted were, and a unit that only takes straightforward cases will always post better numbers than one that accepts the patients nobody else would.
What we will tell you honestly, on the phone, is whether we think we can help in your specific case.
Patient stories
We are recording accounts from patients treated here, in their own words, including one woman who was turned away by several hospitals before she was admitted to this unit and recovered.
Published here shortly, with each patient's consent.
For referring clinicians
Call before you move the patient.
The most avoidable harm in critical care transfer in Lagos is a patient loaded into an ambulance on the assumption that a bed exists. Call us, get a named person, and get a straight answer. We would far rather tell you we are full than have a patient arrive to a unit that cannot take them.
- Most recent urea, creatinine and electrolytes, with the time taken
- Electrocardiogram where potassium is raised
- Fluid balance and urine output over the last 24 hours
- Current medications, infusions and their rates
- Hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV screening status where available
- Working diagnosis and the reason for transfer
- Airway status and current respiratory support
The ICU Journal
Critical care and kidney writing, at the length the subject deserves.
Written for Nigerian patients, Nigerian families and Nigerian clinicians, about the things that are hardest to find clear information on.
Kidney failure in Nigeria: the point at which dialysis becomes necessary
How kidney function is measured, what the five stages mean, and the specific findings that turn dialysis from a future possibility into this week's decision.
7 August 2026
Sepsis: why the first hours decide the outcome
What sepsis actually is, why it kills so quickly, the signs that should send someone to hospital immediately, and what a good hospital does in the first sixty minutes.
14 August 2026
Transferring a critically ill patient between hospitals in Lagos
What has to be arranged before a patient moves, what to ask the receiving hospital, and why the transfer itself is the most dangerous part of the journey.
21 August 2026
Part of SkyHigh Medical Centre
For everything that is not critical care.
This unit is part of SkyHigh Medical Centre, a 24 hour hospital in Magodo Phase II. Maternity, children, surgery, heart care, outpatient clinics and follow up after discharge from here all happen there.
Next step
If you need a bed tonight, call. We will tell you straight away.
The unit is staffed at every hour. Referring clinicians should call before transferring a patient so availability can be confirmed and the team can be ready on arrival.