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

Today, I want to report a massive success story. So we’ve been working with this client for probably since mid-January this year, 2021. The client’s father got admitted into intensive care after a hemorrhagic stroke, ended up ventilated, ended up with a tracheostomy, had one failed extubation before having a tracheostomy.

We helped the client advocate to keep their loved one in intensive care instead of going to LTAC, obviously, this is for our US audience mainly. And lo and behold, the client’s father got decannulated eventually.

Eventually, got weaned off the ventilator, got taken off the tracheostomy and had the tracheostomy removed, and is now in acute rehabilitation.

And it all comes down to A. asking the right questions, B. having someone on your side that understands intensive care inside out, that understands what questions to ask and understands how to give a second opinion, that understands about your rights as a patient and as a family.

Most families in intensive care, they don’t know that they have rights. They just take everything for face value that they are being told. And with our advocacy and with our help, we help this family to avoid LTAC and have their client weaned off the ventilator and have the tracheostomy removed in ICU.

And that’s how it should be because the only way where patients on a ventilator with a tracheostomy can be safely removed from the ventilator and the tracheostomy is in intensive care. Because you’ve got the intensive care nurses, intensive care doctor, respiratory therapists, and so forth. All the expertise is there and it’s definitely not in LTAC as we know from experience.

So that is my tip for today. Ask questions from day one, even day two might be too late. If you’re not asking the right questions. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you and your family might be doomed. We see it over and over again. To seek out professional help when you have a loved one in intensive care, the better results you will get.

If you have a loved one in intensive care, go and check out intensivecarehotline.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website. Like this video, comment down below what questions that you have and subscribe to my YouTube channel for families in intensive care.

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