Former Ipswich Hospital intensive care patients are taking steps on the road to recovery, at a group that also helps their families and loved ones.
ICU Steps members meet every month at Bluebird Lodge, in Ipswich. They share stories of their illness, recovery, and experience of intensive care. ICU stands for intensive care unit.
The group helps patients, but also loved-ones as they deal with life-changing situations.
Watch a video featuring interviews with ICU Steps members
Amanda Carter, who was in a coma for nine days with sepsis, pneumonia, and lung failure at Ipswich Hospital, said: “Without coming to ICU Steps I would not have recovered as well as I have.
“Talking to other people who have been in the same position as me is the reason I come.
“It is somewhere to open up. Nobody knows what you have been through unless they have been in a coma themselves.
“It helped me through some bad times – the questions: ‘Why did this this happen to me?’
“I’m more stable now that I ever was.”
Amanda Carter, Glen Robinson and Kathlyn Hewlett.
Another former ICU patient Kathlyn Hewlett had a stroke last year and was put into an induced coma at Ipswich.
She said: “The support you receive is unbelievable.
“We have all got camaraderie and talk about our experiences. Even my husband learns a lot from coming as well.
“The nurses have been amazing – we could not do it without them. They interact with you and explain why things happened the way they did.
Critical care outreach nurses Tamasin King and Claire Gray run the group.
Tamasin said: “ICU Steps is an opportunity for patients to their stories and experiences.
“They can learn how to manage ongoing symptoms they may have had since leaving critical (intensive) care.
“The main topics repeated by patients are about hallucinations, bad dreams, sleeping issues.
“Members’ experiences can help us help other patients in hospital with strategies they can follow when they go home.”
ICU Steps meet the first Wednesday of each month, between 6pm and 8pm, at Bluebird Lodge in Ipswich.
Follow the group on Facebook: ICUSteps Ipswich
Back to top