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If you want to know what you should do when you have your dad in ICU on a ventilator with a breathing tube in an induced coma and you get told that he may not survive, and the ICU team wants to switch off the machines and let him die, stay tuned! I’ve got news for you.

My name is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com and I have another quick tip for families in intensive care.

So, today I have an email from Princess who says, “Hi, Patrik. My dad is in ICU of the cardiac arrest and I’ve been told that he may not survive. He’s on a ventilator with a breathing tube. He’s in an induced coma, and the ICU team wants to turn the machines off and wants to let him die. What should I do?” Well, unfortunately, this is quite a common scenario in intensive care.

First off, what you need to understand is that 90% of intensive care patients approximately survive the intensive care stay. So that’s the first thing you need to know, that’s not what the intensive care team is telling you. They want to make you believe that the majority of intensive care patients is actually not surviving but dying. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. Intensive care teams have become very good at saving lives, but they’ve also become very good at creating and trying to control a negative doom and gloom narrative.

Now, you need to counteract that with your own research. It sounds to me like that is what you are doing. First off, if you don’t agree with turning off the machines, then that’s the right thing to do because no one can force you to agree to a withdrawal of treatment and let your dad die. That could be perceived as murder.

So first off, you need to take control of the narrative. What do you want for your dad? Have you ever discussed a situation like this with your dad where you said, “Hey dad, if you are ever in ICU, what do you want?” And if that conversation has taken place, most families in intensive care say that most patients say, “Look, I want everything done.”  Now, that is not the case for everyone. There are also some patients who say, “Look, I don’t want everything done,” and that’s okay too. But a conversation needs to be needs to take place in situations like that. It’s not as simple as ICU team is telling you, “Oh, we just turn off the machines.” Like I said, that could be perceived as murder. Why do health professionals, doctors, nurses go into intensive care if they don’t want to help people to get out of intensive care alive?

I have worked in critical care nursing for 25 years in three different countries where I worked as a nurse manager for over 5 years where I’ve been consulting and advocating for families in intensive care since 2013 here at intensivecarehotline.com. I can very, very confidently say that we have saved many lives for our clients in intensive care and for our families in intensive care. You can verify that on our intensivecarehotline.com testimonial section. You can also verify it on our intensivecarehotline.com podcast section where we’ve done client interviews.

Back to the email from Princess, first off, what you need to do is you need to get a second opinion. You need to make a head to toe assessment for your dad. When I talk to doctors and nurses directly on behalf of our clients, or most of the time I have clients on the phone so we can set up a three way call, I ask all the questions from head to toe. I ask all the questions you haven’t even considered asking but must be asked when you have a loved one critically ill in intensive care.

That is just the reality, unless you piece together what is a very complex puzzle when someone is critically ill in intensive care, you don’t really know what you don’t know. That is the biggest challenge for families in intensive care. They don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know what to look for. They don’t know what questions to ask. They don’t know their rights, and they don’t know how to manage doctors and nurses in intensive care.

So with all of that said, you need to find out what issues has the cardiac arrest caused. Is there potentially a brain injury, a hypoxic brain injury or an anoxic brain injury? Is your dad still on inotropes? Is he still on vasopressors? Has your dad had an angiogram or an angioplasty? What was the follow up from the cardiac arrest? Have they found out what caused the cardiac arrest? Are his kidneys, are his liver working? What medications is he on? What are the blood results? Has he had an ultrasound of the heart? Has he had a CT (Computed Tomography) scan of the heart and the lungs? Unless you’ve looked at all of that, it’s going to be very difficult for you to make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power and influence, making sure your dad gets best care and treatment in a situation like this.

Now, here is another almost laughable aspect of this. You will understand in a minute why I say it’s a laughable aspect of this. In the last couple of weeks, we have worked and we are still working with two clients in ICU. We’re working with other clients too, but just to illustrate that to you, two clients in ICU were almost in a similar type of situation and they also have been told, “Your family member won’t survive and we should just stop everything.” Because it’s “in the best interest” of our client’s family members to die. Well, families objected that.

With our help, by us looking at medical records, by us talking to doctors and nurses directly, we helped those families to turn the situations around and both of their loved ones are now improving. One of them is close of having the tracheostomy and is walking, eating, and drinking. It’s coming very close now to going home. The other gentleman is now waking up after the ICU team left him in an induced coma unnecessarily, even though they were saying he was dying. There’s no need to keep someone in an induced coma when they are supposedly dying. So, you have to question everything and you have to question intensive care team’s clinical judgments, very important.

It’s so important that you get a second opinion. It is so important that you make up your own mind because if you don’t, your loved one may die. He may have survived if you’ve gotten a second opinion, if you’ve done all your research, if you have someone to look at medical records and so forth. It’s just the reality of things and it is a good reality. Lastly, the ICU teams are very good to pretend they can do whatever they want until you challenge them. Challenge them and you will see what happens. You will see that you can turn most situations around.

Over the years, we have helped hundreds and hundreds of clients and members here at intensivecarehotline.com to save their loved ones’ lives or improve their lives instantly. Once again, you can verify that on our testimonial section at intensivecarehotline.com or you can verify it on our intensivecarehotline.com podcast section where we’ve done client interviews.

That’s why we also created the membership for families of critically ill patients in intensive care, and you can become a member if you go to intensivecarehotline.com, if you click on the membership link or if you go to intensivecaresupport.org directly. In the membership, you have access to me and my team, 24 hours a day, in the membership area and via email, and we answer all questions intensive care related. In the membership, you also have exclusive access to 21 eBooks and 21 videos that I’ve personally written and recorded. In the membership, it will help you to make informed decisions, get peace of mind, control, power, and influence, making sure your loved one gets best care and treatment always.

I also do one-on-one consulting and advocacy over the phone, Zoom, Skype, WhatsApp, whichever medium works best for you. I talk to you and your families directly. Because I talk to you and your families directly, I handhold you through this once in a lifetime situation that you simply can’t afford to get wrong. I also talk to doctors and nurses directly on your behalf and with you. We can set up three way calls and I ask all the questions that you haven’t even considered asking but must be asked when you have a loved one critically ill in intensive care.

I also represent you in family meetings with intensive care teams so you have an advocate in those meetings.

We also do medical record reviews in real time. We also do medical record reviews after intensive care so that you can get closure, if you have any questions, or if you are suspecting medical negligence. When we review medical records in real time, it helps you to get a second opinion in real time.

All of that you get at 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.

If you like my videos, subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families in intensive care. Click the like button, click the notification bell, comment below what you want to see next, what questions and insights are from this video, and share the video with your friends and families.

I also do a weekly YouTube live where I answer your questions live on the show. You will get notification for the YouTube live if you are a subscriber to my email newsletter or if you are a subscriber to my YouTube channel here and you get access to my newsletter at intensivecarehotline.com.

Thank you so much for watching.

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

Take care for now.

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