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Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com with another quick tip for families in intensive care.
So, we had an email from a reader who says, “I agreed for my husband to be taken off life support about 12 months ago. Now, I feel like I agreed to murder him. I was pressured at the time, and I was in no way to make an informed decision”, and the reader just left it there. Now, like I say over and over again, this is very disturbing, but it’s unfortunately also the reality of what’s happening in intensive care because the biggest challenge for families in intensive care is that they simply don’t know what they don’t know. I can’t stress it enough. 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, we are presented with similar scenarios every day, when we talk to our clients all over the world. They’re feeling coerced. They’re feeling pressured by intensive care teams to agree to take their loved ones off life support. And I couldn’t agree more with that this is potentially murder. It’s at least euthanasia if someone is hastened to death. Look at the definition of euthanasia.
Now also, no one can force you to sign off on your husband being killed. No one can force you. You have rights. Now, intensive care teams are very good at pretending that they can do whatever they like without your consent, and nothing could be further from the truth. End-of-life decision-making does not happen in a vacuum. End-of-life happens around laws, policies, and procedures. How can end-of-life not happen within a framework? Now, again, intensive care teams are very good at pretending end-of-life decision-making happens in a vacuum. I mean, that’s like the wild west, and you need to exercise your rights.
And also, another thing that families in intensive care simply don’t know, they don’t know about treatment options. They are not asking the right questions. Intensive care teams are known to only tell families half of the story unless you are asking all the right questions, which I’ve published an article, what questions to ask. So, you can look it up. It’s a free article. I’ve made a long video about it, “What questions to ask?” Unless you’re asking the right questions, you will be fighting an uphill battle. And you can never take what intensive care teams say at face value because they have their own hidden agenda, such as emptying beds as quickly as possible, such as freeing up staff, such as maximizing revenue, such as maximizing profits. Prioritizing potentially clinical research over some patients that are not participating in clinical research.
There is so much happening in intensive care behind the scenes that if you don’t have a handle on this, you will regret one of the biggest decisions you need to make in your life. Like this lady says in this situation, she feels like she’s being coerced to murder her husband. Not my words, her words. And that she felt like in hindsight, she was not in a situation where she was able to make an informed decision. Well, this is our whole purpose here at intensivecarehotline.com. Get peace of mind, make informed decisions, have control, power, and influence, and this lady has given it all away on a platter and it costs her husband’s life.
Another recommendation we always make is you got to make decisions today by projecting yourself 12 months out. Would you regret it? That is one of the most important questions you need to ask yourself and you need to answer yourself honestly. Not out of emotion, but by projecting yourself 12 months out, and this is exactly what’s happening with this lady. She’s now 12 months later, having big regrets, and now it’s too late. Her husband is gone.
Now, if someone’s life in intensive care is hanging at a thread, there’s nothing lost by trying to save a life. There’s no rush in talking about end-of-life, what’s the hurry? You have to ask yourself why are intensive care team so pushy and try to take people off life support? Why? What’s the hurry? What’s the hurry in killing people? You have to answer that question for yourself. I’ve given you enough information here at intensivecarehotline.com to come to your own conclusions. You’ve got to question everything.
So, that is my quick tip for today.
And what we can do for this lady in particular, we can, for example, look at the medical records and we will find out very quickly whether there was medical negligence, whether information has been withheld. We’ll find that out by a medical record review.
Now, 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 where we answer all questions, intensive care related.
Also, if you need a medical record review, contact us as well. If you need a medical record review while your loved one is in intensive care, we can help you with that. We can also help you with a medical record review after intensive care, especially if you are concerned about medical negligence. We can find out for you whether there has been medical negligence or not.
And, like the video, subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families in intensive care, share the video with your friends and families, click the notification bell, 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 will talk to you in a few days.