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Quick Tip for Families in Intensive Care: When to Ask for Help When You Have a Loved One Ventilated Critically Ill in ICU to Avoid LTAC (Long-Term Acute Care)!

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

So, lately, we’ve been getting a lot of phone calls from clients who are in ICU, “I have a loved one in ICU”, and the ICU is telling them they need to go to LTAC tomorrow and they didn’t see it coming. They have already given consent to a tracheostomy and the PEG (Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy) tube. Next thing they know, they’re being ambushed by the intensive care team saying, “Well, tomorrow you got to go to an LTAC facility.” Again, they don’t see it coming.

Now, can you seek advice early enough when you have a loved one in intensive care? You really can’t, especially in those situations when you don’t know what it’s coming. Like I’ve been saying for many years, the biggest challenge for families in intensive care is simply 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 is exactly what those families are facing.

They don’t know what’s coming. They have never heard of LTAC (Long Term Acute Care). They don’t know what it means. They have no idea that going there is a really bad thing and that it really could destroy their loved one’s life.

Like we have seen many, many times over the years when ICU patients go to LTAC, they deteriorate, they die, they can’t come off the ventilator, and they need to stay in ICU for as long as it takes. They often bounce back into ICU just after a couple of days after they’ve gone to LTAC. So, the list of things going wrong in those situation situations is really endless.

So, the bottom line here is you need to seek advice, Day 1. When you have a loved one in intensive care, you can’t just let things unfold what you think might be naturally because intensive care teams have their own agenda. Unless you can work out what that agenda is and you can counteract and you can ask the right questions right from the start and you can also make the right and informed decisions more importantly, right from the start, the better your end game will be, and you will have peace of mind, control, power, and influence.

One thing that you should be doing when you have a loved one in intensive care before you give consent to a tracheostomy and a PEG, has the ICU done everything beyond the shadow of a doubt to wean your loved one off the ventilator and the breathing tube and avoid the tracheostomy?

Secondly, your loved one doesn’t need a PEG tube. He or she doesn’t need a PEG tube and by not giving consent to a PEG tube, your loved one won’t go to LTAC full stop because LTACs are not taking patients without a PEG tube.

So, that is my quick tip for today.

Seek advice and help early so that you’re not left alone and that you’re not stuck between a rock and a hard place, which is what these families are facing.

If you need help when you have a loved one in intensive care and I know you do 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] with your questions.

If you want to be a member of our membership for families of critically ill patients in intensive care, go to intensivecarehotline.com and click on the membership link or go to intensivecaresupport.org and you will get access to our membership there in the membership. You have access to me and my team, 24 hours a day, via email and in the membership area and we answer all questions intensive care related.

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

I also represent you in family meetings with intensive care teams so that you have clinical representation there as well as advocacy that is badly needed when you have a loved one in intensive care so that you can make informed decisions, get better outcomes for your loved one, have peace of mind, control, power, and influence.

We also offer medical record reviews for families in intensive care for patients in intensive care and we give you a second opinion in real time. Please contact us for that as well once again so that you can make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power, and influence. We also offer medical record review reviews after intensive care if you have unanswered questions, if you need closure, or if you are simply suspecting medical negligence.

Now, 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 or what questions and insights you have, share the video with your friends and families.

Thanks for watching.

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

Take care for now.