Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Quick Tip for Families in Intensive Care: What Families of Critically Ill Patients in Intensive Care Really Want!

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

So today, I want to talk about, “What families in intensive care really want from intensive care teams”, and more than anything, they want respect, they want to feel heard, and they want intensive care teams to stop with the doom and gloom and with the negativity.

I have worked in intensive care for over 20 years in three different countries. I have worked as a nurse unit manager in intensive care for over five years and I have been consulting and advocating for families in intensive care for the last 10 years as part of my intensivecarehotline.com consulting and advocacy.

Now, over and over again, families in intensive care want hope. They want optimism and they want all resources to be used to save their loved one’s life.  If it doesn’t happen, they can accept that. What they can’t accept and shouldn’t accept is the doom and gloom and the negativity and the whole notion around, “Well, it’s, there’s no hope. If your loved one is surviving, they won’t have any quality of life.” They’re sick of it, quite frankly.

Case in point. So, this week we’ve been working with a client who has the 63-year-old mother in intensive care. This lady hired us, and we’ve been working with her for the last few days. When she was first contacting us, she said her mom’s been in ICU for five days, she’s got cancer, and she has respiratory failure. She ended up in septic shock and she was pretty sick by the time she engaged me and my team.

When we looked at the situation, yes, her mom is sick, but there was absolutely no need to throw in the towel or give up. But that’s what the intensive care team wanted to do until we gave her a second opinion and said, “Well, why don’t they try inotropes or vasopressors? Why don’t they start dialysis? Why don’t they give a unit of blood?” When we got through with our advocacy, since then, things have improved.

Now, there’s absolutely no guarantee that things will continue to improve. But again, families can accept that maybe their loved one isn’t surviving. But what they do need to see is that everything has been done and everything has been tried without the doom and gloom and saying, “Yeah, we’ll try everything here that we can that’s within our power. We’ll use all resources that are available to us and hopefully, it’ll work.” If it doesn’t work, then so be it.

But there’s more and more ICUs now we see that with our work that we are doing, want to “pull the plug” as quickly as possible to free up their beds, maybe maximize their revenue. It’s clear now from a recent documentary that came out of the U.S. where it said that if patients are being moved to palliative care and pass away, they don’t show up in the hospital’s mortality rate, making the numbers really look good.

One has to think about that. What that means for hospital care, for intensive care, and the ethics around that. Just some thoughts for you if you have a loved one in intensive care. I know what you want, and I know what you deserve.

Here at Intensive Care Hotline, we can help you get that. We have saved many lives over the years. We have saved many families from heartbreak. We have also saved families from trying the best they can, which we’ve armed them with the tools to advocate for the best that they can so that no stone is left unturned when you have a loved one in intensive care, and that’s really what they want. Families want no stone to be left unturned when they have a loved one critically ill in intensive care. So, that they know they’ve given it their all.

Most intensive care teams nowadays don’t want to give it their all. They’re negative. They want to talk about the doom and gloom and that’s not right and families in intensive care deserve better than that.

So, that is my quick tip for today.

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].

Also, have a look at our membership for families of critically ill patients in intensive care at intensivecaresupport.org . There, you have access to me and my team in the membership area and via email and we answer all questions, intensive care related. You’ll also find the membership at intensivecarehotline.com on our membership section.

I also offer one-on-one consulting and advocacy over the phone, via Skype, via email, via Zoom, via WhatsApp, whichever medium works best for you. I talk to intensive care teams directly. I ask all the questions that you haven’t even considered asking but you must ask in order to make informed decisions, get peace of mind, control, power, and influence.

I also represent you in family meetings with intensive care teams. I would not go into a family meeting without having a consultant and advocate there without having someone there that understands intensive care just as well as intensive care teams do.

We also offer medical record reviews in real time so that you can get a second opinion in real time. Please contact us for that. Again, it all comes down to that so you can make informed decisions, get peace of mind, control, power, and influence. 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.

If you like my video, 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 or what questions and insights you have from this video, share the video with your friends and families and I will talk to you in a few days.

This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com. Take care.

Related Articles:

Quick Tip for Families in Intensive Care: COVID-19 and ARDS, When is ECMO an Option? Quick Tip for Families in Intensive Care: What Can Happen If You Place a Person on a Ventilator Too Soon or Before it’s Critically Needed? Quick Tip for Families in ICU: Why There Can Be Delays with a Tracheostomy with COVID-19 Patient in ICU? Quick Tip for Families in ICU: Is My Dad Really in Multi Organ Failure in ICU? Can He Survive? Quick Tip for Families in Intensive Care: My Mom’s on ECMO After Open Heart Surgery, Now Kidney Failure, Heart Failure & Fluid Overload, Help!