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Can the ICU Team Force Me to Take My Mother Off the Ventilator or Do I Have Options? Quick Tip for Families in ICU!

Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com with another quick tip for families in intensive care.

So I’ve just come off a call with a client who has their 89-year-old mother in ICU. She had a stroke and she’s now on a ventilator for about six days. She does have Alzheimer’s, she had some seizures in the past, and now basically intensive care team is telling our client, “Well, by tomorrow at one o’clock you have to make a decision about whether your mom should have end-of-life care. She needs to have the breathing tube removed and needs to go to a hospice or she needs to have the breathing tube removed. And, she needs to have, palliative care and go to a nursing home because she won’t survive and she won’t have any quality of life. And you have to make a decision tomorrow by one o’clock”. Well, let me get this straight.

You don’t have to do anything here because the hospital actually has a duty of care to look after your mom and also look after you as a family member. Don’t work with timelines that the hospitals are giving you cause those timelines are usually dictated by their financial incentives. They’re usually dictated by their bed management strategies, whether they need the beds. Do not work and give in to timelines that the hospitals are giving you. This is your timeline and your timeline only. The hospital has a duty of care to look after your mom or after any of your family members. It’s assuming you are the power of attorney and you can make decisions on your family member’s behalf. It’s up to the hospital to follow your lead, and what you want for your mom.

What helps in a situation like that of course is, if you have an advanced care plan or if your mom has an advanced care plan that clearly outlines what you want in a situation like, but failing that, it’s still up to you, to dictate to the hospital what you want for your mom. It’s not up to the hospital to tell you, “Oh, tomorrow by one o’clock, you have to make a decision whether your mom is going to leave or going to die.” That is a whole lot of nonsense. Let’s get this straight, right.

Why would the hospital want to rush the end of life? Have you ever asked yourself that? Why would they rush the end of life? Do they have a financial incentive? Well, according to a documentary that was put out on CBN the other day, a few weeks ago, there is a financial incentive to potentially move patients in the U.S. to hospice quicker and cash in, free updates, and then those patients don’t even show up in the mortality rate of the hospitals. You have to consider and question the motives of hospitals.

Coming back to my earlier point, it is up to you and your family to say what you want for your loved one. And the hospital has to follow you. Not the other way around. Don’t work with artificial timelines that are absolutely meaningless.

The other thing that came out when I spoke to this guy, I informed her that, let’s just say her mom can’t come off the ventilator in the next few days that a tracheostomy might be an option. She had no idea what a tracheostomy was or that a tracheostomy might be an option to prolong mechanical ventilation if that’s what she wants for her mom, in the absence that her mom can’t make her own decisions.

So the hospital is clearly creating a narrative that is doom and gloom, it’s negative. It doesn’t seem to give this family options. It’s all about being informed because the challenge for families in intensive care is that they don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know what to look for. They don’t know what questions to ask. They don’t know their rights. They don’t know how to manage doctors and nurses in intensive care. That’s clearly what we’re dealing with here.

So don’t buy into the narrative of ICUs. Do your own research. Start questioning everything. 90% of intensive care patients approximately survive. Why should your mother be the one out of 10 not surviving? Good question to ask. So that is my quick tip for today.

Create your own narrative, question the narrative of intensive care teams, and reach out for help. Help is here, most families that reach out to us say, “Oh, I didn’t know what you were just telling me. I had no idea, that we have a choice, I have no idea that there’s a tracheostomy, for example, I had no idea that there are other treatment options” You don’t know what you don’t know.

That’s my quick tip for today.

If you have a loved one in intensive care and you need help. Go to intensivecarehotline.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or simply send us an email to [email protected] with your questions.

Also, have a look at our membership for families in intensive care. In the membership, you have access to me and my team 24 hours a day in the membership area and via email and we answer all questions, intensive care related. You get access to the membership by going to intensivecarehotline.com and clicking on the membership link or by going to intensivecaresupport.org directly.

I also offer one on one consulting advocacy over the phone, via Skype, via email, via WhatsApp, via Zoom, whichever medium works best for you. And I talk to doctors and nurses directly. I talk to you and your families directly. I make sure you make informed decisions, and have peace of mind, control, power and influence.

I also represent you in family meetings with intensive care teams. I ask all the questions you haven’t even considered asking but must be asked so that you have peace of mind, control, power and influence.

We also offer medical record reviews in real time. If you need a second opinion in real time, go and reach out to us for a review of medical records. We also review medical records after intensive care. If you have unanswered questions, if you need closure, or if you are simply suspecting medical negligence.

Thank you so much for watching.

If you like my videos, subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families in intensive care. Click the like button, click the notification bell. Comment below what you want to see next, what questions and insights you have. Share the video with your friends and families.

Thanks for watching.

This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com, and I will talk to you in a few days.

Take care for now.