Practice of intensive care in rural Africa: an assessment of data from Northern Uganda

Although Intensive Care Units, ICUs, may be said to have started in 1953 in Europe1 the great majority of hospitals in rural sub-Saharan Africa have no such facility and in the context of working with major limitations in financial and human resources the planning of a facility in this environment requires careful consideration. Life expectancy in many parts of Africa is about 45 years and equivalent to the1840s in England and Wales. Medical care in Africa predates conditions not only before ICU care in Europe but even before the discovery of anaesthesia2 and in rural sub-Saharan Africa where medical care is more limited than the urban areas the life expectancy figures must be even worse than those published for sub-Saharan Africa as a whole.A recent review of Intensive Care Units in less developed countries3 noted the lack of data available upon which planning and organising such a facility in the developing world could be carried out.