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

Now, this morning, I was talking to a client who has their 56-year-old husband in ICU with prostate cancer and metastasizing cancer into other organs, and he’s in ICU. He has been in ICU for about a week, and the ICU team told the family that tomorrow at three o’clock they’re going to stop life support because it’s “in this man’s best interest” to die and not to live. The family has objected this and has said, “He wants to live. We want him to live. We want to give him a chance.” Even though the patient is awake, even though he’s ventilated, he can clearly nod, yes or no. Why doesn’t the hospital or the ICU team ask him? Does he want to live or want to die? And clearly the answer is he wants to live.

So, the family has objected, and the ICU team is basically telling them, “Well, we can do whatever we want.” And we educated the family that they can’t just do whatever they want. End of life doesn’t happen in a vacuum. They can’t just take someone off life support and kill a patient. End of life in intensive care happens in a legal framework, not in a vacuum like the intensive care team pretends here.

Also, a tracheostomy has not been offered for this patient if he can’t come off the ventilator. They’re basically saying, “Well, if he does, if we take him off the ventilator tomorrow at three o’clock like we predict, he is going to die.” And I’ll let you fill in the blanks if you take someone off life support, what that could be perceived as. There’s a verb for that that I don’t want to mention here but you can fill in the blanks. If the ICU team withdraws life support against someone’s wishes and they’re going to die, I believe there’s a verb that could be used for that act.

So, coming back to the patient’s wife. We educated her that she has rights, and we have the actual documents for that, including the legal framework in this particular state and country where this client lives. So, we believe that we hopefully save the life just by educating the family that they have rights, and they just need to show it to the hospital because the hospital thinks that people are stupid, and they will just be able to walk all over them. We can see it over and over again. Shame on these hospitals. There’s a lot of good things happening in ICU, but there are hospitals that are absolutely ruthless, trying to walk all over people.

A 56-year-old man with a young family could die tomorrow and the hospital would just willfully do it without having consent from an awake patient. That’s unheard of, and it should never happen in 2023 and hopefully we have educated this particular family about their rights and take the next steps. Also, we’ve advised the family to get access to the medical records as quickly as possible. We will talk to the doctors and nurses, and we will put a stop to this.

So, that is my quick tip for today.

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].

Now, 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 a membership area and via email, and we answer all questions intensive care related.

Also, if you need a medical record review while your loved one is in intensive care in real time, you should contact us as well. And you do need a medical record review in real time because ICU teams are only telling you half of the story if you’re not asking the right questions and if you don’t know what’s happening there. Intensive care is a highly specialized area, and we can help you in real time, giving you a second opinion and breaking things down for you. We also review medical records after intensive care, in case you still have unanswered questions, need closure, or you suspect medical negligence.

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

Thanks for watching.

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

 

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