Quick Tip for Families in ICU: How Accurate Are ICU Teams in their Predictions?

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

Yesterday, I was talking to a client and she said that her 41-year old sister is in intensive care with liver failure and kidney failure. The intensive care team says that the organs are shutting down and that she’s coming to the end of her life.

My client told me that her sister is still on the ventilator, on life support as well as vasopressors or inotropes to maintain a physiological blood pressure and the Intensive Care team has told my client Lydia that they want to withdraw life support tomorrow for her sister because this is quote-unquote in her best interest and she has no chance of living at the same time and this is where the intensive care team is contradicting themselves, they’re saying that if they take Lydia’s sister off life support, there is no guarantee that she’s dying.

So, my question to Lydia really is, how accurate is the Intensive Care team in their predictions that if they take off life support that her sister is dying because the reality is if she’s not dying when she’s on life support she probably can live.

So, like I say, always the biggest challenge for families in intensive care is simply that they don’t know what they don’t know and they underestimate the agenda that intensive care teams have.

Intensive care teams manage busy intensive care units with lots of patients coming in and out. They’re managing bed, they’re managing staff. Intensive care beds are in high demand and therefore, you know emptying an ICU bed probably works in their favor. And unfortunately, sometimes ICU beds get emptied by letting somebody die.

But Lydia then had another question to flow on from there. She said if her sister isn’t dying, what can they make to make her comfortable so she can comfortably approach her end of life.

Well, Lydia, here is my answer to that and as I mentioned to you yesterday on the phone, you know, yes, they can make your sister comfortable with medications like Fentanyl, Morphine, Midazolam or Versed but that is euthanasia, right? That is hastening death.

So, euthanasia is still illegal in the United States and in most other First World countries, so you can’t just kill your sister, right? I mean that’s just very unethical and I know that intensive care units are doing it all the time. It’s common practice, but nobody actually investigates or questions that this is euthanasia, right?

So you really have to dig deep that it’s not black and white. It’s a very gray area but at the end of the day if you are not taking action on this, Lydia, your sister is either going to be suffering and dying a horrible death or she’s going to be euthanized one way or another.

Intensive care team has made up their mind that they’re going to let your sister die, but you can stop them from doing that because if they’re saying there’s no guarantee she’s dying. Well, they need to continue treatment, that’s the bottom line and we can help you with that. We are Advocates, patient and family advocates in intensive care and we can help you getting the best outcome for your loved one very fast, because we understand intensive care inside out. I have worked in intensive care for 20 years and I know the industry very well.

I know about patients and family rights and I get outcomes for our clients in intensive care. I’ll make sure they get best care and treatment. So, the next step is to check out our case studies at intensivecarehotline.com and if you need any help, just call us on one of the numbers on top of the website or send us an email to [email protected].

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