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

Before I go into the quick tip, first of all, I want to say a big, big, thank you. We’ve just exceeded 1300 subscribers on my YouTube channel. It’s a big thank you for all your support, for all your comments on the videos, for all your likes and for your ongoing loyalty. I really appreciate it. I really try and keep these videos high quality so that you can take something away from every video that’s tangible for you and your family when you have a loved one in intensive care.

Also, I will be watching and reading every one of your comments below, and I will be responding to them. Keep those messages short if you can. And just ask the question that you want to ask that you want to have answered, and then I will get right into it. The shorter you can keep your questions, the more I can respond to it.

So today’s quick tip video is about euthanasia in intensive care. So for over the last week, we have been working with a client who has their 77-year old father in intensive care after a stroke and pneumonia . And the intensive care team was adamant to kill their loved one. They said that it’s,  “in the best interest” of their 77-year old dad to have life support withdrawn  and move towards comfort care and palliative care, which is a euphemism for letting them die. It’s a euphemism for end of life. That was the intensive care team’s goal.

Now the family first contacted us two hours before the intensive care team wanted to withdraw treatment and literally killed their father. So we got on the call with the doctors and of course we were able to stop the intensive care team from killing their father because we are professional advocates and consultants for families in intensive care. We know intensive care inside out. We know the rights of patients and families. We know what questions to ask. We know what to look for, and we know how to manage doctors and nurses in intensive care to get outcomes for our clients. That’s the bottom line.

As you may have heard me say before, the biggest challenge for families in intensive care is simply that 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. They don’t know how to manage doctors and nurses in intensive care to get the outcomes that they want, need and deserve for their family members.

Lo and behold, as I mentioned, we have put a stop to the killing of this client. And then we spoke to the doctors who spoke to the ethics team in the hospital. The ethics team actually signed off on a death of a client, and we pretty much exposed that they were planning to do euthanasia. They were planning to withdraw life support. They were planning to start versed or midazolam and fentanyl at high doses. That is euthanasia. Drugs like versed, midazolam or fentanyl, and especially in combination with the two at high doses lead to the inevitable death of a patient because they stop breathing, especially when you remove life support and that is defined as euthanasia. And euthanasia as of the recording, as of September 2021 is illegal. It’s illegal in most, in all Western countries, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, the UK, all European countries, it’s illegal.

So basically we exposed euthanasia or the planning of euthanasia for this client. And we were able to put a stop to it because we called them out on it. And we said that we would go to the Supreme Court. We would hire a lawyer or an attorney and hospitals don’t want to deal with lawyers and attorney. You just got to do your research about what is possible, what are your rights? And you need to get professionals involved in your advocacy process.

Now, one week later, instead of this client being dead, they have a tracheostomy. They ended up with a tracheostomy. They are now full code status. DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) has been removed with our advocacy. And now they’re breathing spontaneously which is more evidence that the intensive care team was planning to perform euthanasia. And euthanasia is illegal and it could get people into jail if they’re performing euthanasia. And that’s what we call them out on. And the minute we called them out on it and provided the evidence, they stopped doing what they were doing.

So now this particular client has a second chance of life. Now we don’t know whether that client will survive or not, but he’s showing signs of improvement. He’s now waking up. He’s now taking his own breaths. He had 10 minutes off the ventilator, which is a massive success given that last week, he was more or less at death’s door, not by his own volition, by the choice of the intensive care team. So, and again, we put a stop to that.

So you really need to start doing your research vigorously. You don’t know what you don’t know and intensive care is such a highly specialized area that you simply can’t go without professional consulting and advocacy. So now instead of talking about end-of-life, we’re now talking to the hospital and the family about, what are the next steps? What needs to happen to get their loved one off the ventilator to get them out of ICU alive?

So that is my quick tip for today. We exposed another intensive care unit doing illegal, immoral, and unethical procedures and things and we saved another life.

If you have a loved one in intensive care and you need help, go to intensivecarehotline.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website, or send us an email to [email protected].

Like this video, comment down below what questions and insights you have from this video and subscribe to my YouTube channel for updates for families in intensive care.

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