Background: Critically ill patients, who may be unconscious or sedated while they are treated in ICUs, often need the assistance from machines to help them breathe (ventilators). The use of these machines for more than 48 hours may result in ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). Oral hygiene care, using a mouth rinse, gel, toothbrush, or combination, together with suctioning secretions, may reduce the risk of VAP in these patients. There are recommendations and guidelines for oral care in the ICU administered to patients in the 2005 AACN Procedure Manual for Critical Care and the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention respectively. However, no gold standard exists for oral care for critically ill patients who are orally intubated. Objective and method: A descriptive study using a self-administered 25 questionnaire was used to describe oral care practices performed by 100 nurses posted in ICU. Results: 84% of the respondents reported oral care practices as a high priority in ICU-administered patients. 63% of nurses provided oral care twice a day for an average duration of 20-40 seconds. The most common tool used were spatulas and gauge (30%); toothbrush (16%); spatulas, gauge, toothbrush and suctioning (14%) followed by spatulas, gauge, and suctioning (10%) with the least used being swabs and foams (2%). 83% of the responders also mentioned the use of chemical plaque control, 6% uses toothpaste, 50% used 0.12% chlorhexidine and 25% used toothpaste and chlorhexidine. Conclusion: There is a gap in actual practices compared with policies because of the variations among different organization policies.