The team
The people watching your relative.
Intensive care is defined by how many trained people are watching each patient and how quickly they act. The unit is staffed around the clock by critical care nurses at a ratio far higher than any general ward, with medical cover on site at every hour.
Dr Rita Irurhe
Chief Executive Officer, SkyHigh Medical Centre
Dr Rita Irurhe leads SkyHigh Medical Centre and holds overall responsibility for clinical and operational standards across both the Magodo hospital and the SkyHigh Medical Dialysis and ICU Centre.
Placing intensive care and haemodialysis together at Yaba was a decision made under her direction. Acute kidney injury is one of the most common complications of critical illness, and in most Lagos hospitals a patient who develops it has to be moved to reach a dialysis machine. Removing that journey removes a real risk.
Responsible for
Dr Adedapo Adesanya
Consultant Intensivist
Dr Adedapo Adesanya leads clinical care at the SkyHigh Medical Dialysis and ICU Centre, with responsibility for the patients admitted to the unit, the decisions made about their organ support, and the conversations families have about what is happening.
Critical care is a specialty where the difference between a good outcome and a poor one is often made in the first hours, and it depends less on equipment than on somebody experienced watching closely and acting early. That is the standard the unit is run to.
He is also the point of contact for referring clinicians across Lagos who need a bed or a dialysis chair, and for families who want a proper conversation about their relative rather than a brief update in a corridor.
Responsible for
RN Roselyn Ogunbiyi
Nursing Supervisor
RN Roselyn Ogunbiyi supervises critical care nursing at the unit, leading the team who spend more time with your relative than anyone else and who will usually notice a change first.
Intensive care is defined by its nursing ratio rather than its equipment. One nurse watching a small number of patients continuously is what allows deterioration to be caught in the hours before it becomes a crisis, and maintaining that standard across every shift, including nights and weekends, is her responsibility.
She is also the person families should ask for at the bedside. Most questions about how your relative has been overnight, what the monitor is showing, or what to expect today are answered better by the nurse caring for them than by anyone else.
Responsible for
Rahimat Abdulsalam
Operations Manager
Rahimat Abdulsalam manages operations at the unit, covering equipment, consumables, dialysis supplies, power and the logistics of running a service that cannot pause.
An intensive care unit consumes a great deal that is invisible from the bedside. Dialysis circuits and filters for every session. Oxygen that cannot run low. Power that cannot fail mid procedure. Ventilator consumables ready before they are needed rather than after.
She is also the point of contact for the practical side of an admission, including transfers arriving from other hospitals and coordination with the Magodo site.
Responsible for
Nursing
The ratio is the point.
What separates intensive care from a well equipped ward is not the machines. It is that somebody trained is watching each patient continuously, so deterioration is caught in the hours before it becomes a crisis.
Our critical care nurses are the people who will spend the most time with your relative, who will notice the change first, and who can answer most of your questions at the bedside. Ask them. That is what they are there for.
Specialist input
Who else is involved.
Critical care is never one person. Depending on what is wrong, your relative's care may involve several specialties at once.
- Nephrology, for kidney failure and dialysis decisions
- Anaesthesia, for airway management and ventilation
- Surgery, where an operation is the source control
- Obstetrics, for critically ill mothers after delivery
- Physiotherapy, which begins as soon as it is safe to start
Speaking to the team
Please nominate one family spokesperson to receive updates and pass them on. Avoid calling during shift handover and the morning ward round, and ask the nurse in charge which times give the fullest answer. For a detailed discussion, ask for a scheduled meeting with the consultant rather than trying to cover everything on the phone.
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.