Critical Care
Rossdales Equine Hospital provides a 24-hour equine critical care service, 365 days a year. Our experienced team of clinicians and nurses are available to deal with all types of equine emergencies, including colic, colitis, pneumonia and pleuropneumonia, cardiac and neurological problems.
Our state-of-the-art Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) opened in late 2017. In this purpose built facility, each patient is housed within a stable with its own nursing area. A strict system of double gowning and gloving, coupled with a one-way flow of clinical waste handling, allows us to maintain the highest levels of biosecurity for our sickest patients without exposing other horses to potentially contagious diseases.
The clinical team in the MICU is led by RCVS Veterinary Specialists in Equine Internal Medicine. The veterinary and nursing teams have access to state-of-the art facilities and equipment, including diagnostic imaging, surgical and medical facilities. Our comprehensive in-house diagnostic laboratory service, supplemented by several horse-side laboratory services, ensure that horses’ metabolic status can be evaluated 24/7.
Our MICU greatly enhances our ability to manage horses with neurological disorders. One stable is equipped with an Anderson sling and Large Animal Lift, the gold standard device for this purpose. Additionally, our MICU stables can accommodate foals that have to be separated from their dams for continuous infusions of fluids and intravenous nutrition without breaking the vital bonding process.
Nurses are assigned specifically to intensive care so that we can ensure that our critically ill patients are given the care they need 24 hours a day. CCTV monitoring, with two cameras in every box, is invaluable in monitoring intensive care patients. We have also developed excellent facilities to measure patients’ vital signs and cardiac rhythm remotely, in real-time, which allows our patients to rest undisturbed while still being monitored extremely closely.