ABSTRACT
In a resource limited environment, a critically ill patient may need to be transferred for a variety of reasons including transfer from the ward to a critical care unit, from a critical care unit to another part of the hospital or transferred to another hospital for specialist care, for example neurosurgery. A. Y. T. Goh et al. hypothesised the regionalisation of services would have an impact on overall morbidity and mortality due to transfers being undertaken by non-specialist teams. They argued given the high critical care workload in some specialities, for example paediatrics, healthcare professionals in rural and regional hospitals would receive the frequency of patients to attain and retain their proficiency, if appropriate education and resourcing were to be made available. Many critical care units vary from basic units with limited resources and staff to tertiary referral centres.
