Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Quick Tip for Families in ICU: Why You Need Professional Help from Day 1 When Your Loved One’s in ICU to Avoid Tracheostomy! 

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

So, on the weekend, I did a YouTube live and I do those YouTube lives every Sunday, 10:30 AM Sydney Melbourne Time, which is 6:30 PM on a Saturday night, Eastern Standard Time in North America. And one of the guests on the show asked a very good question that I want to break down here even further, even though I answered the question on the show. I want to break it down even further.

Steve at the time asked, “So we hear your videos about that, “A tracheostomy should be avoided”, but then when I read your case studies, most of the time, you are saying that a tracheostomy is unavoidable. How come that you’re saying a tracheostomy should be avoided? And then you are often saying a tracheostomy is unavoidable.” That is a very good question and let me break this down here for you.

So, here’s the thing. When someone goes into intensive care and they’re on a ventilator with a breathing tube, you need to start on day one to avoid the tracheostomy. You need to do your research. You need to know what questions to ask. You need to get help from a professional, like you can get here at intensivecarehotline.com to look out for what needs to be done and hold intensive care teams accountable and ask the right questions.

The challenge here is this, most families that come to us and ask for help come way too late. Let me say that again. Most families that ask for help from us, they come to us when it’s often way too late. They come to us at the two-week mark when someone is in intensive care in an induced coma, and then they’re asking us, “Is a tracheostomy avoidable?” And most of the time at the two-week mark, it’s no longer avoidable. If you look at the research, a tracheostomy should be done after day 10 to day 14 when someone has been ventilated for that length of time.

Now, I understand no one is sitting at home and doing research and thinking, “Oh, I wonder what questions I need to ask if my mom, my dad, my spouse goes into intensive care next week.” I get that. No one is thinking that way. But the reality is, if you are presented with a situation where you have a loved one in intensive care, you need to ask the right questions from day one because if you’re not, you end up in a scenario or with a scenario in week two where you haven’t asked the right questions and then it’s too late, and then tracheostomy is often the right thing to do. I hope that answers this question and answers this seemingly contradictory issue. But I hope I’ve explained it to you now, why it’s contradictory.

It all comes down to you doing research and getting professional help day one when you have a loved one in intensive care.

So, that’s my quick tip for today.

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 simply send us an email to [email protected] with your questions.

Also, have a look at our membership site 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 Intensive Care at Home-related.

Also, if you need a medical record review, you can contact us as well. We can help you review medical records from day one. So, there we can help you start to review medical records and get down to the bottom of things on day one. So, contact us for a medical record review. We can do that online, often through MyChart. The hospitals should give you access to the medical records online. We also review medical records after intensive care, especially if you’re suspecting medical negligence.

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 questions and insights do you have from this video, do you agree with what I’m saying? Do you disagree?

Thanks for watching.

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