Critically ill horses now have a state-of-the-art facility toprovide care for them.
The LSU School of Veterinary Medicine recently opened the EquineIntensive Care Unit, a part of the Equine Health Studies Program,which researches, teaches and provides services for horses.
Ginger Guttner, public relations coordinator for the VeterinarySchool, said the horse racing industry is huge in Louisiana, makingthe Equine ICU crucial to the school.
Dr. Rustin Moore, director of the Equine Health Studies Program,said the ICU is second to none in the United States in terms ofsize and design and is the only comprehensive equine biomedicalcenter in Louisiana and the immediate region.
Guttner said the ICU has 10 stalls, which could accommodate upto 14 horses.
Moore said there are six stalls for adult horses, and fourstalls for mares and their foals. One of the stalls is padded withsoft rubber for horses with limited movement or horses unable tostand.
Although they never referred horses to other hospitals, Mooresaid they did have to put critically ill horses in different partsof the hospital because the old ICU only had two stalls. He saidthe new ICU is more efficient and can accommodate morepatients.
Now the critical horses are in the same area, Moore said, whichenables the staff to be more efficient.
Moore said the ICU provides constant monitoring and treatment.Also, he said there are television monitors in the ICU which enablethe veterinary technicians to monitor other equine parts of thehospital, such as isolation. He said this allows the technicians tobe near the critically care patients, but also to monitor otherpatients.
Moore said the ICU is equipped with board certified specialists,including internal medicine, reproduction, surgery, anesthesiologyand cardiology.
Moore said the equine program has been trying to raise money fora state-of-the-art facility for about six years. He said the ICUwas funded by private donations and fundraisers, not by thestate.
The equine program is in the process of completing its plan forremodeling. Moore said the program is planning to buildstate-of-the-art isolation and reproduction units, but hascompleted the ICU and lameness and performance evaluation unit.