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If you want to know what to do if the intensive care team is telling you that your family member should just die after a subarachnoid hemorrhage and have life support withdrawn, stay tuned. I’ve got news for you.

My name is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com and I have another quick tip for families in intensive care.

So, I had a phone call this morning from a very distressed client who said they have their 61-year-old family member in intensive care for about 2 weeks after a subarachnoid hemorrhage. Their family member had surgery, and initially was on their path to recovery, but now their family member is sort of going backwards a little bit, not waking up, but can actually open eyes to talk or to speech and can also obey simple commands such as squeezing hands. So, there is definitely something there from the brain. It’s not that the person isn’t reacting at all. It’s actually doing some meaningful and purposeful movements.

So now, the intensive care team is telling the family that their family member won’t recover, and they should just have life support removed. They are still on a ventilator and without the ventilator, they couldn’t breathe, and without the ventilator, they would most likely die.

So, the intensive care team is now giving the family the “sales pitch” to say their family member should just die because there’s a very slim chance of recovery, and that they wouldn’t have any “quality of life”.

Well, what is quality of life? What is it? It is a very subjective perception about quality of life, and everyone has a different perception about quality of life and what is acceptable for them. So, who are intensive care teams to make decisions and judgment about what quality of life should look like for a particular patient in ICU?

Now, intensive care team wants to meet with the family on Friday to talk about what the next steps are, i.e., killing their family member, and the client was asking me what they should do, and I said, “Well, don’t go to the meeting.” You’re giving the intensive care team a platform and let them talk about end of life for their family member, which they don’t agree with.

Now the good news is, their family member is, again, obeying commands and is purposefully responding to their questions. Well, why can’t the intensive care team ask the patient what they want? Why are they such cowards and don’t wait for the patient to wake up more until they can ask the patient. So, is it intensive care teams now that want to make a decision who can live and who can die without actually asking the most important person here, which is the actual patient? They will indicate whether they’ve had enough or whether they want to keep going.

It always comes back to what’s the urgency to kill someone in ICU? Where is the rush? Where’s the urgency? Someone can please tell me that. It’s clear that ICUs have their own agendas, and their agendas are to empty their ICU beds. The ICU bed is the most sought-after bed in an ICU or in a hospital. As a matter of fact, it’s the most expensive bed in the hospital. So, of course, they want to empty ICU beds at all costs, because the next patient is just waiting to occupy that ICU bed.

So, in any case, coming back to what our clients should be doing, well, they should not attend the meeting or as a first step, get the agenda of the meeting in writing to see what they want to talk about. Then, the ball is in your court to see whether you want to go, or you don’t want to go. My advice is not to go unless they want to talk about things that you want to talk about, which is how they can help your family member to recover. That’s what you want to talk about. You don’t want to talk about end of life. You want to see that the intensive care team is putting their best foot forward. You want to see that and that should be the angle you should take to even attend a meeting.

If you think they’re not putting their best foot forward, why would you give them a platform to talk about the end of life? Don’t play their game. Some games in life, you don’t play in order to win. So, let’s not go down that track here. If you do go, I can only recommend that you do go in there with an advocate like me present, because I will ask the right questions, I understand the clinical terminology, and I know what questions to ask. They haven’t even told you 10% of what’s really going on. I said to the client, they need to get access to the medical records to make sure that all the information is transparent.

Before you want to talk about end of life, you want to get a second opinion, and you want to make sure all the information is transparent. What is it they have to hide? What is it that you can’t see?

So, that helps you understand how to manage situations like that. There’s plenty of time to talk about end of life, and there’s also plenty of time to help the patient recover, but you need to start with the plan of rehabilitation today, not talk about end of life.

What’s the alternative to end of life? The alternative is trying to rehabilitate and recover the patient. If she’s awake and obeying commands and doing more and more meaningful and purposeful movements and obeying commands, then that discussion needs to happen, not end of life discussions.

So, that is my quick tip for today.

I have worked in critical care nursing for 25 years in 3 different countries, where I worked as a nurse manager for over 5 years, and I’ve been consulting and advocating for families in intensive care since 2013 here at intensivecarehotline.com. I can confidently, very confidently say that we have saved many lives for our clients in intensive care. You can verify that if you go to intensivecarehotline.com if you look up our testimonial section, or if you go to intensivecarehotline.com podcast, where we have done some client interviews who verify that what we’ve done for them has worked to save their loved ones’ lives.

We have helped hundreds and hundreds of members and clients over the years to improve their lives instantly. Like I said, we have saved so many lives with our consulting and advocacy for families in intensive care. That’s also why I 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 talk to doctors and nurses directly. I handhold you through this once in a lifetime situation that you simply can’t afford to get wrong. When I talk to doctors and nurses directly, I ask all the questions that you haven’t even considered asking but must be asked when you have a loved one critically ill in intensive care. I also represent you in family meetings with intensive care teams.

We also do medical record reviews in real time so that you can get a second opinion in real time. 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.

We also have a membership for families of critically ill patients 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 that I have personally written and recorded that are only exclusively accessible for our members. All of that 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.

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, share the video with your friends and families, and comment below what you want to see next, what questions and insights you have.

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’re a subscriber to my YouTube channel or a subscriber to my email newsletter at intensivecarehotline.com.

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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