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

Everything that I am talking about here is real world stuff. So, everything that I’m talking about is either feedback from clients is what families in intensive care tell us because we have created a safe place or a safe space for families in intensive care to really say what they think about intensive care and to really share their frustrations, which is basically when you go to our website at intensivecarehotline.com and families opt-in into our free email newsletter, the instant impact report, or the free video mini-series so that families can make informed decisions, get peace of mind, control, power, and influence when they have a loved one in intensive care. We ask them about their biggest frustration, and they tell us what they really think about intensive care.

Now, one of the frustrations that has been shared recently from a family is, “I find it outrageous that a team of strangers can make decisions about, and he or she puts that in “best interest” of someone they don’t know.” And if you have followed my blog for any length of time, I mean, I’ve been saying this for the longest, that, a team of strangers, i.e. the ICU team makes decisions about what’s “in the best interest” for someone they don’t know, for someone they’ve never met, for someone that lived a life to this point. I didn’t ask anyone what’s in their best interest. And now all of a sudden, literally at the drop of a hat, you have a team of strangers, i.e., the ICU team make decisions about what’s “in their best interests.”

And ICU’s need, I believe, to start having a look at themselves and see what people are really saying. And I have worked in intensive care myself as a critical care nurse for over 20 years in three different countries. And I have also worked as a nurse unit manager for over five years. And I found the same that after many years of having worked in ICU, there’s a lot of good things happening in ICU. Don’t get me wrong. Most patients leave intensive care alive, and most patients survive intensive care.

So, the odds are definitely in someone’s favor. But if you look at the doom and gloom, and all the negativity that always comes from intensive care teams, it is actually not what’s really reflecting reality because again, most patients in intensive care survive. And less or about 10% of patients in intensive care do not survive. But that means 90% of intensive care patients do survive.

And again, how can someone say that it is “in the best interest” of someone to die, because that is some of the things that are being said in intensive care, that your loved one will not have any quality of life in the future; therefore, it’s “in the best interest” for your loved one to die.

And what is quality of life? What is it? Quality of life is a subjective measure, not an objective measure. Quality of life is something that people need to decide for themselves. It’s not for intensive care teams to decide what quality of life is acceptable for patients in intensive care going forward. An intensive care team’s job is to make sure that treatment and therapy are optimized and maximized so that people have a chance to leave intensive care alive. And that is what we are here for at intensivecarehotline.com, to help families in intensive care achieve that through our consulting and advocacy, making sure that you don’t need to deal with this frustration, that a team of strangers is talking about what’s “in the best interest” for your loved one.

That is up to your loved one if they can speak for themselves and often they can’t speak for themselves in intensive care so then it’s up to you to make that decision, and we can help you with making those decisions by holding intensive care teams accountable because we understand intensive care inside, out and we know about patient and family rights because you do have them. And here is how we can help.

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].

Also have a look at our membership for families in intensive care 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 related.

Also, if you need a medical record review for your loved one in intensive care, go to intensivecarehotline.com as well and contact us. We review medical records in real time for patients in intensive care and we can give you that critical second opinion.

And we also review medical records for patients in intensive care or after intensive care. If you have unanswered questions, if you need closure, or if you are simply suspecting medical negligence, we can find all the answers for you there as well.

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

Thanks for watching.

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

Take care.