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

So, one of the questions that we get quite frequently is, “How does lack of nursing staff impact on quality care, or on what the ICU team is telling families in intensive care about prognosis and diagnosis of their loved ones?” And it has a huge impact. I mean, anyone that’s not living under a rock would’ve read in the last few years, even pre-covid and pre-pandemic, that there’s a lack of specialist staff in ICU whether it’s doctors or nurses or in the U.S., respiratory therapists, physiotherapists. There’s a lack of qualified staff and that’s playing a huge part of how intensive care teams position prognosis, in particular, in ICU.

So, because of the massive shortage of ICU nurses, ICU doctors, et cetera, ICUs often can’t staff for all beds that are available. So, you might walk into an ICU, and you might see half of the beds empty and you might think, “Oh, it must be quiet here.” Not necessarily. It could just simply mean they don’t have staff. I’ve worked in ICUs where they had 20 physical beds, and they could only staff 10 of them. And you can then imagine how that increases the pressure on ICU beds in terms of if the ICU team is telling you, “Well, it’s “not in the best interest” for your loved one to have full treatment”, it literally means, “Well, we need the bed”. That’s what it means, or we don’t have staff. So yeah, that’s just a reality. And COVID has just exacerbated that problem.

As a critical care nurse, myself, I’m talking to other critical care nurses. They’re leaving the industry in droves. They’ve had enough. They’ve been poorly treated during COVID. They’ve been poorly treated before COVID. And now, during COVID was getting worse, and then vaccine mandates came in. Some nurses didn’t want to continue because they needed to get vaccinated and so forth. So, the impact on the industry is huge, and it’s impacting on patient care. Simple as that.

So, that is my quick tip for today.

Keep your eyes and keep your mind open, what’s happening in ICU. Look behind the curtains, which is exactly what we’re doing here at intensivecarehotline.com.

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].

Also, have a look at our membership for families in intensive care at intensivecaresupport.org. There, you have access to me and my team, 24 hours a day, in a membership area and via email, and we answer all questions, intensive care and also Intensive Care at Home related.

Also, if you need a medical record review, contact us as well. We help with medical record reviews for patients in intensive care in real time, but also after intensive care especially if you’re suspecting medical negligence. But it’s much better if we can review medical records in real time. You should have access to medical records just through an online portal and then it’s easy to get access to them.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families in intensive care, share the video with your friends and families, click the like button, click the notification bell, and comment below what you want to see next, or what questions and insights you have from this video, or whether you agree or disagree.

Thanks for watching.

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