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

So, we’re getting tons of questions and emails from subscribers, and one question that I wanted to quickly address today is from a lady who says, “I want to know what went wrong when my husband was in ICU, and why did my husband have to be put on a ventilator and in an induced coma?” So, that’s a great question, and I’m pretty sure that you have many unanswered questions here.

Like I have always said, 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 that’s exactly one of those situations again, where you don’t know what you don’t know.

So, why do patients in intensive care go on a ventilator? They go on a ventilator because maybe they’ve had elective or non-elective surgery and they need to be placed on a ventilator to deal with the aftermath of surgery, like cardiac surgery, or after multiple trauma or, brain injuries. That leads people often to an induced coma and a ventilator, but also other issues such as pneumonia, for example, neuromuscular diseases. So, there could be a multitude of issues why your husband ended up on a ventilator, but at the end of the day, he couldn’t breathe for himself. That is one of the main reasons he ended up on a ventilator. Maybe he had a cardiac arrest, maybe he had a heart attack, maybe he was in ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome), and lung failure. There could be a number of reasons.

Now, you’re also asking what went wrong? Now, this is a very generic question. Just because your husband has gone into ICU and has been placed on a ventilator doesn’t mean that something has gone wrong. Maybe it was just a necessity for him to get on the ventilator to stay alive. Unfortunately, you haven’t detailed what exactly happened and why your husband was in ICU and what did go wrong. Again, maybe nothing went wrong, but you have the perception that something has gone wrong and maybe you don’t know that the ICU team has tried everything within their power to improve your husband’s situation. Again, it’s a bit difficult because you haven’t shared more details.

Again, it goes to show after having worked in intensive care for over 20 years in three different countries, where I also worked as a nurse unit manager for over 5 years, it goes to show that once again, families simply don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know what to look for. They don’t know what questions to ask.  Has your husband, God forbid, passed away? Is there some long-term damage from his ICU stay? Again, you haven’t shared any of that. Maybe everything went as in the best interest of your husband. Maybe they did do everything they could, but it still didn’t turn out right.

So, the best next step in a situation like that, if you really want to know what went wrong, is to look at medical records. We always recommend getting access to medical records as quickly as possible.  Get a second opinion from us, as quickly as possible, when you have a loved one in intensive care so that you have professional help, so that you’re not relying on intensive care teams only telling you half of the story unless you know what questions to ask and what to look for, and again, that’s where we can help you very fast. So, get access to the medical records.

Now, it sounds like it’s too late, but you can still send them to us and then we can do a medical record review in retrospect and find out what’s exactly happened and find out whether there has been any medical negligence, answer all your questions that you have to find out what went wrong.

So, that’s how we can really help you to get closure on those highly emotionally charged situations when you have a loved one in intensive care. We can really help you with getting closure after the event, and we can help you by reviewing medical records.

But we much rather prefer helping you in real-time, so you don’t even need to scratch your head of what’s happened. If you have someone holding your hand while you have a loved one in intensive care, that is so much better because you want to anticipate what’s happening. You want to make sure you are managing an intensive care team so that they don’t manage you. And once again, that’s exactly what I can help you with. Helping you manage the intensive care team so that you get better outcomes so that you can make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power, and influence when your loved one is in intensive care.

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] with your questions.

Also, have a look at our membership for families in intensive care at intensivecaresupport.org. There, you have access to me at my team, 24 hours a day, in a membership area and via email, and we answer all questions intensive care related.

As I mentioned, if you need a medical record review for your loved one in intensive care, we can help you with that in real time so you can have a second opinion in real time, and we can guide you through the process step-by-step. We can also ask questions on your behalf to the intensive care team, or we can set you up with the right questions to ask so you don’t have to come back and ask what went wrong and why did your loved one get on a ventilator, so you don’t have to ask these questions when it’s often too late. You have got to ask those questions in real time. As I mentioned, we also review medical records after intensive care if you need closure, if you have unanswered questions, or if you are simply looking for medical negligence.

Now, 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, or what questions and insights you have from this video.

Thanks for watching.

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

Take care.