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Quick Tip for Families in Intensive Care: Knowing My Grandma Feels So Alone After 3 Months in ICU & She May Never Get Off the Ventilator & Tracheostomy

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

So today, I want to talk about an email that I had from a reader, Margie, who says, “I feel very sorry for my grandmother who has been in ICU now for three months and she’s probably never going to be able to come off the ventilator. She has a tracheostomy, and she feels very depressed. She feels very lonely, and she wants to come home.” Well, Margie, you’ve come to the right place here because in a situation like that, you should look at Intensive Care at Home and at intensivecareathome.com, we can help patients like your grandma to leave intensive care and have her looked after at home.

So, it’s a genuine alternative to a long-term stay in intensive care because you are saying that she’s been in ICU for three months and that’s just too long. Patients get depressed. They have no day and night rhythm. They often haven’t had any fresh air in months. They haven’t had a shower in months and the lights are on, 24 hours a day. There’s noise, 24 hours a day. It’s just not a conducive environment for long-term intensive care patients to thrive and get off the ventilator because it’s such a depressing and sterile environment. It’s full of infection and it’s also very expensive.

Now, of course, we should not put a monetary term on someone’s life, but the reality also is that with Intensive Care at Home, we can cut the cost of an intensive care bed by around 50%, which not only makes economic sense, it also makes sense from a hospital perspective to buy an empty bed, which ICU beds are the most sought-after beds in a hospital.  So, ICU staff are the most sought-after staff in a hospital, whether our doctors or nurses, especially staff, but you know, we can do all of that at home. It’s a win-win situation and especially, it helps your grandma and your family because your grandma can be surrounded by her family, and she doesn’t need to feel lonely anymore.

So, you should check out intensivecareathome.com for that solution. Currently with Intensive Care at Home, we are operating all over Australia and all capital cities in Australia. And if you’re in the U.S., you should contact us  as well. We can probably set you up with the right people there to help you as well.

So, that is my quick tip for today.

If you have a loved one in intensive care, go to intensivecarehotline.com and call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website. And if you have a loved one in intensive care wanting to go home, you should go to intensivecareathome.com and you should contact us on one of the numbers on the top of our website. There, we can help you one way or another.

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.

Please also contact us if you need a medical record review for your loved one in intensive care in real time. We review medical records in intensive care in real time while things are happening, we’ll give you the second opinion that you want. And we also review medical records after intensive care in case you want answers, you are suspecting medical negligence, et cetera.

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

Thanks for watching.

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