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Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com with another quick tip for families in intensive care.
So, today’s tip is about, again, a question that we had from a reader who says, “How can intensive care teams start looking after the real patients in ICU rather than after the heart, the lung, the liver, the kidneys, and the brain? Well, that’s a great question to ask, and I think it’s at the core of what we do here at intensivecarehotline.com, where we try to empower families in intensive care to make informed decisions, get peace of mind, control, power, and influence while they have loved ones in intensive care. And I can hear the frustration out of this email from our reader who’s probably very frustrated by having a loved one in intensive care. The ICU teams seem to focus on treating the organ rather than a holistic person that had a life probably the day before they went into ICU, potentially not even thinking that there would be in ICU the day after.
We are dealing with real people in ICU and not just with someone’s organs, and especially when intensive care teams talk about multi-organ failure or organ failure. We are talking about organ failure of a specific person who’s a mom, who’s a dad, who’s a spouse, who’s a child. We are talking about real people here and not about potential organ failure. The question is how can we reverse organ failure and how can we maximize outcomes for patients and families in intensive care? How can we maximize their quality of life rather than looking at what’s the length of their stay in intensive care. And if a patient extends a certain length of stay in intensive care, then they’re deemed to be a liability, often for many intensive care units. And then the talk starts about not having a quality of life and that it’s often, “in their best interest” to die, to free up the ICU bed. And that’s just not the right approach.
We have to start looking after people and their families and not just after organs. The organs are a means to an end to get patients in intensive care out of ICU alive.
And I think especially in the last few years with COVID, the situation in the healthcare system has gone from bad to worse with many highly skilled doctors and nurses leaving the industry because they’ve been burned out or they have been subjected to vaccine mandates, that have pushed them out of the industry. And it’s just a sad state of affairs. And we are seeing that every day all around the world, what the impact is on families in intensive care. It seems to have become a heartless sort of machinery where intensive care teams seem to be very quick in “pulling the plug” and withdrawing treatment to free up ICU beds or manage what seems to be a disastrous staffing crisis in intensive care at the moment.
So that is my quick tip for today.
Just wanted to highlight what people really say when they have a loved one in intensive care. Give them a voice and look at the bigger picture so that you as a family in intensive care can make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power, and influence.
Now, 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 simply send us an email to [email protected] with your questions.
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 in real time, please contact us. We can help you with a medical record review in real time and give you a second opinion in real time.
If you need a medical record review after Intensive Care, if you need closure, you have unanswered questions, or if you’re simply looking to see whether there has been any medical negligence, we can help you with that 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.
Thank you so much for watching.
This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com, and I’ll talk to you in a few days.
Take care.