Complications
Mechanical ventilation is often a life-saving intervention, but carries many potential complications including pneumothorax, airway injury, alveolar damage, and ventilator-associated pneumonia.
In many healthcare systems prolonged ventilation as part of intensive care is a limited resource (in that there are only so many patients that can receive care at any given moment). It is used to support a single failing organ system (the lungs) and cannot reverse any underlying disease process (such as terminal cancer). For this reason there can be (occasionally difficult) decisions to be made about whether it is suitable to commence someone on mechanical ventilation. Equally many ethical issues surround the decision to discontinue mechanical ventilation.
Read more about this topic: Mechanical Ventilation