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If you want to know what to do when your loved one is critically ill in intensive care and the intensive care team can’t wake them up out of an induced coma, stay tuned. I have news for you.

My name is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com and I will have another quick tip for you today.

So, here’s the situation. Currently, we are working with a client who has their 80-year-old dad in ICU after cardiac arrest and potentially a hypoxic brain injury. He’s been in an induced coma for about 12 days now and every time they wake him up, try to take away the propofol and the fentanyl is not synchronizing with the ventilator. He’s breathing against the ventilator and he’s also having some myoclonic jerks. Now, that’s been tried for over the last week or so and they didn’t succeed.

Now, eventually, there seemed to be some progress yesterday where sedation was stopped and there seems to be eye-opening, less resistance against the ventilator, and fewer myoclonic jerks as well. 

So, obviously the family wants to see more of waking him up, not less. Now, the intensive care team says, “Well, we have to re-sedate him because we don’t have the manpower and the staff to wake him up and sit next to him and watch him all the time.”

Well, I have worked in critical care nursing for 25 years in three different countries where I worked as a nurse unit manager for over 5 years in intensive care and I’ve been consulting and advocating for families in intensive care here at intensivecarehotline.com since 2013.

I can confidently, confidently say that we have saved many lives for our clients in intensive care. You can verify that on our testimonial section at intensivecarehotline.com and you can verify it at our podcast section at intensivecarehotline.com where we’ve done some client interviews who verify that we saved their loved one’s life. We even have an ex-ICU patient on the podcast where ICU told them and the family that he would die.

In any case, coming back to our current situation here, when the ICU team tells you they don’t have the manpower to wake him up properly, to work with the patient one-to-one and basically guide him, lead him through the process of waking up, that is medical negligence.

Why is it medical negligence? Because if you keep someone in an induced coma for longer than necessary, patients will decondition. The risk for them to end up with a tracheostomy is very high and you’ve got to do everything beyond the shadow of a doubt to wake a patient up, try and wean them off the ventilator, and avoid a tracheostomy. That should be an absolute no brainer.

Not once in 25 years critical care nursing have I heard that they don’t have the manpower to wake the patient up. There could be other reasons, medical reasons, but certainly not having the manpower, that’s simply not good enough. It’s probably a sign that they have a high staff turnover. That’s probably a sign that the hospital and the ICU culture is probably toxic. It probably starts from the top. You need to be very mindful of whether they’re trying to set your dad up to fail.

Now, you should not accept excuses and the only thing you should accept here is have a one-on-one nurse until your dad is more awake because if they re-sedate him, which they have, the chances of him needing a tracheostomy and never coming off the ventilator and never waking up are very high. At some point, they have to put the resources in to try and wean him off the ventilator, try and wake him up as much as possible. If that fails, maybe you need to tracheostomy but not having the manpower is simply not good enough.

Once again, I’ve worked in many ICUs around the world and it’s a sign that it’s probably a toxic workplace culture with high staff turnover. Like I said, it probably starts from the top where people potentially being mismanaged, they misled, they’re not supported, that’s when you get a high staff turnover and then patients and families actually suffer as well. That’s simply not good enough.

What we recommend in a situation like that is to write to hospital executive and we can help you write to hospital executive. We’ve done it successfully many, many times by advocating for our clients and their families.

That’s why we helped hundreds of members over the years for intensivecarehotline.com. We help them to improve their lives instantly when they have a loved one, critically ill in intensive care.

Now, also, that’s why we’ve created a membership for families in intensive care. You can become a member if you go to intensivecarehotline.com if you click on the membership link or if you go to intensivecaresupport.org directly. In the membership, you have access to me and my team, 24 hours a day, in the membership area and via email and we answer all questions intensive care related.

In the membership, you also have exclusive access to 21 e-books and 21 videos, and the membership will help you to make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power, and influence, making sure your loved one gets best care and treatment always.

I also do one-on-one consulting and advocacy over the phone, Zoom, Skype, WhatsApp, whichever medium works best for you. I talk to you and your families directly. I handhold you through this once in a lifetime situation that you simply can’t afford to get wrong. I also do talk to doctors and nurses directly on your behalf or with you. When I talk to them directly, I ask all the questions that you haven’t even considered asking them with all my experience but must be asked when you have a loved one, critically ill in intensive care.

We also do medical record reviews in real time so that you can get a second opinion in real time. I also represent you in family meetings with intensive care teams. We also do medical record reviews after intensive care if you have unanswered questions, if you need closure, or if you are suspecting medical negligence.

All of that, you get at 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.

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

I also do a weekly YouTube live where I answer your questions live on a show. You will get notification for the YouTube live if you are a subscriber to my YouTube channel or if you are a subscriber to my intensivecarehotline.com email newsletter.

Thank you so much for watching.

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

Take care for now.

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