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

So this week, I had another emergency phone call from a client and the client was basically telling me, “Look, today at 4:00 PM, the intensive care team told us that they would withdraw life support ”. They would withdraw the ventilator , would move into comfort care for their father and would let him die because it’s “in his father’s best interest”.

So the client said, “What should we be doing?” And I said to the client, well, let’s get on the call with the doctor and I will be able to stop them from doing this proposed end-of-life situation. And I’ve promised the client that if I can’t stop the intensive care team from killing their father, that he would get his money back.

And I put my money where my mouth is. And, we got on the call with the doctors and lo and behold, by knowing and understanding intensive care inside out and advocating for the client, they stopped withdrawing life support.

And, after I have worked in intensive care for over 20 years in three different countries where I spent five years of those 20 years as a nurse unit manager in intensive care, I understand intensive care inside out. I do know about patients and family’s rights. I do know how hospitals operate, and I do also know that hospitals do not operate in a vacuum, which means they have to follow policies, procedures, guidelines, and most importantly laws.

If treatment is withdrawn in intensive care without family or patient consent, that is murder. It’s either murder or it’s euthanasia. Depending on which way you look at it, but either murder or euthanasia is illegal. Both scenarios are illegal.

And if you are a family in intensive care and you feel intimidated by the intensive care team  or you believe everything that’s telling you, you’re on shaky ground, you are fighting a losing battle, and that’s why you need to get external advice to get results, get the best care and treatment for your loved one. And also keep in mind between 91% and 93% of patients in intensive care survive. So that’s the vast majority. So you always need to ask the question. If the intensive care team is telling you, your loved one is going to die, why would your loved one be one out of 10 or, you know, the odds are in your loved one’s favor. So you’ve got to ask the right questions.

And again, the biggest challenge for families in intensive care 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. Most importantly, they don’t know their rights. They don’t know how to manage doctors and nurses in intensive care.

Coming back to our client, now, few days down the line, we’re not talking about end-of-life. We’re talking about doing a tracheostomy, we’re talking about doing a PEG tube to get their loved one out of intensive care. That’s a very different conversation to have. And it goes to show that the intensive care teams are potentially murdering and euthanizing patients illegally if you’re not asking the right questions. Because if that patient had no chance of survival, why would that patient still be around? And that’s what the intensive care team claimed last week that the patient has no chance of survival. And we’re a week later now, the patient is off vasopressors and inotropes  and is off sedation now and moves towards the tracheostomy. That’s a very different conversation to be had.

If you have a loved one in intensive care, go to intensivecarehotline.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website, or send us an email to [email protected].

And like this video, comment below what questions or insights that you have from this video and give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my YouTube channel for updates for families in intensive care.

Thank you so much for watching this video.

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