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Quick Tip for Families in Intensive Care: When to Give Consent to a Tracheostomy?
Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com with another quick tip for families in intensive care.
Over the last few days, I’ve spoken to a couple of clients and they actually consented to a tracheostomy for their loved ones after they’ve been on ventilation with a breathing tube for about 10 or 14 days.
Now, when I ask those clients why they consented to a tracheostomy, they said, ah you know, they’ve been sort of forced by the Intensive Care team? So, then my question was, do you actually know about the risks and the benefits of a tracheostomy, they said no.
So, the problem here is that basically, those families have been giving consent to the procedure that they weren’t informed about and tracheostomy have that time in their place, don’t get me wrong.
However, you need to know about the risks and the benefits before you’re consenting to a tracheostomy because it has significant implications for your loved one because it takes time to reverse a tracheostomy or tracheostomy also may never be able to be reversed.
So, my tip for today really is making sure you know about when you’re giving consent to procedures, what they actually mean, make sure you know about the risks and the benefits about any procedure really before you’re rushing into making a decision.
Don’t let anybody force you to do anything. Always make sure you are making informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power and influence.
So, make sure you read on intensivecarehotline.com, our case studies that will help you and I’ll talk to you in a few days.