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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 talk about the three reasons why intensive care units or ICUs can’t create a safe space for families in ICU. Let’s look at them in more detail.

1. ICUs are highly political, so it’s not really about patient care. It’s all about the politics in the ICU. It’s all about the hierarchy. It’s all about the promotions. It’s all about what the hospital and the ICU units want to achieve. It’s not really about what families and what patients want to achieve. And I can confidently say that after I have worked in intensive care for over 20 years, and I had plenty of time to absorb what’s really going on in ICUs. I have worked in many ICUs around the world, and I believe I have a very good idea that in most Western countries in ICU, it’s all about the politics, not about the patients and the families.

2. It’s all about money and bed management in ICU. So what do I mean by that? When patients in ICU occupy beds, somebody in the background, nurse unit managers, medical directors, hospital administration, is counting the dollars and looking at how much money is this patient costing them? Are they making money? Would they be able to offer ICU beds to other more profitable patients in ICU? Would they do research studies on other ICU patients? And the list goes on. It’s all about money. It’s all about bed management. It’s not about Mr. Smith or Mr. O’Brien, that’s in an ICU bed that needs care and their family. It’s not about that, unfortunately.

3. ICU teams are judging families and patients about their choices. Now, the number of calls we are getting here at intensivecarehotline.com from families, basically telling us, “Look, tomorrow at one o’clock, the intensive care team wants to withdraw treatment. That means our loved one is going to die. How can we stop the ICU team from doing that? They’re judging us that we want to continue life. They think our loved one is suffering and that death is the only option.” And they’re feeling judged by wanting to prolong the lives for their loved ones. And why can you judge people to prolong the lives of their loved ones? There’s nothing wrong with that. You would do the same for your family member, but again, for ICU teams, it’s all about what do they want to achieve for their ICU? How do they need to manage their beds? They’re always saying, well, if it was my father, if it was my mother, I wouldn’t want that for them. Well, that’s their choice, but not your choice. So ICUs therefore are a very judgmental environment. And who am I or anybody to judge what you want for your loved one or what your loved one even wanted before they went into ICU. Maybe it’s documented in an advanced care plan and so forth.

So that is my quick tip for today.

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 or below this video on YouTube or send us an email to [email protected].

Like this video, comment below this video what questions that you have and subscribe to my YouTube channel where you get updates for families in intensive care.

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