Intensive care utilisation: the Baragwanath experience.

Intensive care medicine is an expensive service whose impact on health care has been questioned. South Africa is a country undergoing rapid social and political change and the role of intensive care medicine in the health care system of this country needs to be assessed. In this paper we evaluated the quality, cost-effectiveness and utilisation of technology in the intensive care unit of Baragwanath Hospital, a hospital serving the black community of Soweto.