Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

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

So, here is an email from Emma who writes, “My daughter is on a ventilator and the doctors are saying she can’t be weaned off. She’s also on dialysis. They are suggesting she do hospice care and turn off the ventilator. My daughter wants to live, they are trying to send her to a nursing home and, let her die there.” I’m very sorry to hear that Emma, that this is the situation that your daughter is in.

Well, first off, the best way to prevent those situations in the first place is to have an advanced care directive and have documented what you would want in a situation where you’re faced with a critical illness. What is it that you want? I also understand that it’s difficult to even predict what you would want in a situation like that depending on what the situation really looks like in much detail. But the bottom line is that if you don’t have an advanced care plan, this is what hospitals often do.

So, in any case, you must know that approximately 90% of intensive care patients survive.  So, why should your daughter be in the 10% bracket of not surviving? That’s number one, just because the doctors are saying she can’t be weaned off the ventilator, doesn’t mean anything. Have you been looking for a second opinion? For example, here at the intensivecarehotline.com, we give second opinions, and you will actually see that you need to move away from the doom and gloom and the negativity from the intensive care team pretty quickly because otherwise, you believe everything they’re saying without doing your own due diligence.

Next, families in intensive care that really get good outcomes, they take full responsibility for what’s happening. They take responsibility for outcomes. They take responsibility for changing the things they can change. The first thing that you can change is your view on things and your outlook on things. The intensive care team might be negative. Well, you can, and you should be positive. This is not some woo talk. No matter the outcome, you will be doing yourself a favor by staying positive. Imagine you’re getting sucked down into the negativity of things, you’re not doing yourself a favor.

So then next, I am assuming you are in the United States just by reading your email. Now, there was a documentary on one of the major news outlets in the U.S. recently, I’ve actually seen it where it’s been suggested that, now listen to this, that if a patient goes to hospice and dies in hospice in a hospital in the U.S. that they don’t show up in the mortality rates for that hospital, making the numbers really look good saying, “Oh, we have a really low mortality rate here”, whilst patients die in hospice.

Now, it’s getting better on top of that. The documentary also suggests that about moving patients out of intensive care into hospice care, and then getting new patients into intensive care, they’re maximizing their financial benefits. Imagine that. That’s what I’ve been saying here for the longest that by moving patients around, it’s all about the profit and the benefits of the hospital. It’s not about patients or families, it’s about maximizing profits, and finally, someone is exposing that as well. I’m very glad to see that finally someone is bringing transparency into the space.

Lastly, just because they’re telling you she can’t be weaned off the ventilator, again, I would like to look at your daughter’s ventilator settings. I would like to look at her medical records. I would like to talk to the doctors and nurses. If all of that would happen, I will probably point things out to you that you haven’t even considered need to be pointed out. I will probably ask questions to the intensive care team once I have ventilator settings, arterial blood gases, medications she’s on, blood results, and so forth, what it all means and how that can be used for your daughter’s benefit.

So, plenty of patients in ICU are on ventilators, are on dialysis, that doesn’t mean they’re going to die. It could just be the cause of their critical illness and let’s get through it and then move on from there and let’s see whether your daughter can recover.

You haven’t shared your daughter’s age. You also haven’t shared whether your daughter has a tracheostomy or whether she has a breathing tube. You haven’t shared critical details here, but I would assume given that they’re suggesting hospice that she doesn’t have a tracheostomy yet. So, maybe you haven’t even considered that a tracheostomy is a viable option for your daughter.

So again, it comes back to that, the biggest challenge for families in intensive care is 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 I think that’s exactly what’s happening here, Emma. Anyway, I hope that helps.

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 the membership area and via email and we answer all questions intensive care related.

I also offer one-on-one consulting and advocacy via Skype, via phone, via email, via Zoom, via WhatsApp, whichever medium works best for you. I talk to doctors and nurses directly. I participate in family meetings with the intensive care team representing you there. Making sure you have a professional on your side when it comes to those crucial family meetings, but also just by me and you talking to the doctors and nurses, you will see the dynamics change because I have all the insider insights.

If you need a medical record review in real time and the second opinion in real time, please contact us as well. We review medical records in real time. We also offer medical record reviews after intensive care

if you have unanswered questions, if you need closure, or if you are simply suspecting medical negligence, please contact us as well.

If you are finding these videos valuable, 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 questions and insights you have and what you want to see next.

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 for now.