'Post intensive care support saved my sanity'

A Jersey man says the support he received for his mental and physical health after being treated at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) "saved my sanity".

Gary Syvret, 67, went to A&E last year with an infection from a heart operation in 2024 and was quickly treated by ICU before being flown by air ambulance to Oxford for further treatment.

He has developed Post Intensive Care Syndrome (PICS) since and struggles to remember what happened to him during his treatment because of the drugs he was on to stabilise his heart.

Syvret has shared his story and experience to make more people aware of the support available for others with PICS at the ICU follow-up clinic.

ICU staff said more than half of patients that go to ICU for care will develop PICS which can affect their physical and mental health.

Syvret said: "I'm not 100% sure what I remembered actually happened the way I remember it because of the drugs and that's one of things I'm working on with the team."

He added: "It's getting me to understand what was happening and could have been what was real, what wasn't and also what some of the hallucinations might actually mean."

"To have somebody to be able to open up and speak to about these issues that's not within your own family group is a great benefit."

Syrvet's condition has become worse, and has been deemed terminal with doctors giving him about another month to live.

But he has continued to campaign to raise awareness about the work down at the ICU follow-up clinic.

Syrvet said "I've not given up and I don't intend to give up" and "the team here help my family as well as helping me".

He added: "It's about raising that awareness outside of the team that's actually working here who are trying to keep us all sane."

Holly Fisher is a nurse on the ICU and set up the intensive care follow-up clinic in 2016.

She said "not many people understand post intensive care syndrome" and "we really want to get the message out there to the GPs and the community services".

Fisher added: "The recovery from ICU is huge and we really want people to understand what these patients go through and where they can get help from."

"It's important that not just healthcare professionals but the wider public understand this so if they have a friend or relative that's been in ICU, they have more of an understanding of what they're going through."

Follow BBC Jersey on X and Facebook. Send your story ideas to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk.