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Quick Tip for Families in Intensive Care: ICU Wants to Stop Ventilator and Nutrition for My Mother, Saying She isn’t Waking Up Fast Enough! 

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

So, I have an email from a reader who says, “They want us to stop the ventilator and supplemental feeding for my mom. They say she isn’t waking up fast enough.” So, that’s obviously a big concern for you and your family, that basically they want to stop treatment for your mom because she isn’t waking up fast enough.

Now, you haven’t shared with us why she’s not waking up. You haven’t shared with us how long has she been in ICU. You haven’t shared, does she have a brain injury? What has led to this? But either way, you should be in charge of making that decision, whether your mom wants to live, assuming she doesn’t have an advanced care directive.

If she does have an advanced care directive, what does the advanced care directive say? By the way, it’s really important for anyone to have an advanced care directive that these decisions don’t need to be made by other people because that’s when dispute arises when people don’t have an advanced care directive. What is it that you would like if you were in intensive care, God forbid, what is it that you would like? Would you like all treatments to be done? Would you like all treatments to be offered? How much time would you want to be given to “wake up”? If you’re not waking up, would you then want to go on to have a tracheostomy, for example? Those are all questions you should be asking yourself before those situations arise because then you have clarity on what you want, and other people can’t really make the decision or interfere.

But like I always say over and over again, 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, and they don’t know how to manage doctors and nurses in intensive care. And again, this is a classical scenario, what we are dealing with here.

So, why is she not waking up? Has she been on sedation for too long? Is there a brain injury? Those could be some of the scenarios. There could be other scenarios as well.

So, that is my quick tip for today.

If you have a loved one in intensive care in a similar situation or in a different situation, you should contact us because for example, in a situation like that, what we could do is we could set you up with a series of questions to ask once we have more information. We can talk to the doctors and nurses directly. We can look at medical records and really find out what is happening and try to make sense out of the situation. We really help families to bring clarity in and almost like a second opinion to help families understand what’s happening and what are their options.

The intensive care team in this situation is saying, “Well, the only option is to stop life support and stop feeding.” Well, maybe there is another option. Maybe the ICU just simply needs the bed. Maybe there is another option. Again, we can find that out for you. We can educate you very quickly on what the options are. Probably there are many options available that the intensive care team hasn’t told you about.

So, 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] 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, and we answer all questions, intensive care related, 24 hours a day, in a membership area and via email.

Also, if you need a medical record review, please contact us as well. We review medical records in intensive care or for patients in intensive care in real time and we also review them after intensive care if you have unanswered questions, if you need peace of mind, or if you’re suspecting any negligence, we can help you with that as well. But we strongly recommend to review medical records while your loved one is in ICU in real time, so you can have an independent pair of eyes, looking at what’s really happening.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families in intensive care, share the video with your friends and families, click the like button, 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’ll talk to you in a few days.

Take care.