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

So, today’s tip is about, “How to diligently and ethically approach end of life situations?” 

Let me explain a bit more. So, we’re currently working with a client who has their 75-year-old fiancé in ICU and they’re in there after cardiac arrest. They’re not waking up after cardiac arrest and hypoxic brain injury.

The client wanted to “buy some time” by doing a tracheostomy, buying him more time, whereas ICU wanted to push towards end of life pretty quickly saying, “The client won’t have any quality of life, or they won’t survive.” Obviously, the client did want to buy some time.

Our advice is always do not make decisions today that you might regret in 12 months’ time. So, our advice is project yourself 12 months out from today, would you regret the decision that you’re making today in 12 months’ time, 24 months’ time? 

It is a really important consideration because we have so many families contact us and they say, “Hey, I agreed to withdrawing treatment last year and now I’m having second thoughts.” It’s a very difficult situation because you’re watching your loved one not getting any better, and you’re clinging on to hope and sometimes you wonder how long a piece of string is. Will they get better?

Especially with hypoxic brain injuries, some patients might improve, some patients might not improve. If they do improve, is it going to be a quality of life that it would be acceptable for your loved one? Is it going to be a quality of life that’s acceptable for you? 

They’re very tough questions to ask and there’s no right or wrong answers. That’s really my message today, but there are no right or wrong answers. There are only right or wrong answers for you and your family. If you think that your loved one would not want to live with whatever impairment they’re currently dealing with, then you should probably move towards end-of-life care.

But I think it’s also incredibly important that you have an end-of-life situation on your terms. Most intensive care teams just want to push towards end-of life-as quickly as possible that they can save the money, they can free up the ICU bed. But that should not be your concern. That should absolutely not be your concern.

Your concern should be to have a say in what unfolds next. Should your loved one die in ICU? Do you want to have them die at home? Do you want to continue treatment in ICU? Do you want to continue treatment at home, for example, with a service like Intensive Care at Home? You can continue treatment at home. You can find more information at intensivecareathome.com. 

But it should not come to a point, once again, families approach us 12 months later, 24 months later saying, “Hey, last year we agreed to what we now think prematurely to withdraw life support and now we want to look at medical records. Did we do the right things?” You want to look at medical records right now. You want to have someone give you a second opinion now, not 12 months later when it’s too late.

Have patients come back from, what has been labeled as irreversible brain damage? Yes, they have. Is it a miracle? You could probably label it as a miracle. Does it happen one in a million? Maybe it only happens one in a million. Do you want to cling on to hope for something that’s unlikely to happen? Again, I don’t have the answer for you, but what I can do here is guide you and give you different scenarios and don’t let anyone put pressure on you to make a decision in a certain time frame.

You need to feel 100% comfortable about the decisions that you are making. That’s really the bottom line message. There are no right or wrong answers. It’s only the right or wrong answers for you, for your loved one, and for your family. You need to look at it from all angles so that you don’t regret your decision today, in 12 months’ time, 24 months’ time. But with the advent of services like Intensive Care at Home, for example, you can also have end-of-life care at home, which is much nicer than in a hospital, much nicer than in an ICU.

There’s a number of avenues for families of critically ill patients in intensive care to have a say in what the outcome should look like from their perspective because you don’t want to get this once in a lifetime situation wrong because then it’s too late.

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

We have saved many lives, which is documented and verified on our testimonial section with our consulting advocacy. We know about patients’ rights. We know about family’s rights in intensive care, and we apply them on your behalf and get fantastic outcomes because of that. You can also verify our outcomes in our podcast section where we’ve done some client interviews.

That’s one of the many reasons why we created 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, sharing all my decades worth of ICU nursing experience with you and your families making sure you make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power, influence so that you can influence decision making fast, making sure that your loved one gets best care and treatment.

I also do offer one-on-one consulting and advocacy over the phone, Zoom, WhatsApp Skype, 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 can’t afford to get wrong. I also talk to doctors and nurses directly on your behalf and 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 as an advocate.

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.

All of that, you get at intensivecarehotline.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or 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, share the video with your friends and families.

I also do a weekly YouTube live where I answer your questions live on the show. You will get notifications 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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