Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

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

So, I’ve just come off a call with a lady who has their 92-year-old grandmother in ICU on a ventilator with a tracheostomy, and she’s been on the ventilator with the tracheostomy for about six to eight weeks now. She initially ended up in ICU with septic shock and she survived that at the age of 92. That is good news for everyone that’s sort of been hearing all about the doom and gloom and all the negativity from ICU teams that their loved one is going to die. If a 92-year-old lady can survive a septic shock, your 55-year-old dad can survive pneumonia. Don’t get bogged down by the negativity of ICU teams because you got to look at what’s happening in reality and you got to look at the statistics and the research, and the statistics suggest that about 90% of intensive care patients actually survive. So, look at what’s happening in reality. Don’t listen to the naysayers and to the negativity.

Now, coming back to this 92-year-old lady, she’s struggling to get off the ventilator. There seems to be a huge psychological component of her not getting off the ventilator. She had up to 10 hours off the ventilator last week, and now she’s barely managing time off the ventilator apparently due to some panic attacks. There seems to be a huge psychological component. And now while she is getting Seroquel and Clonidine to help her with the anxiety attacks, it’s often the psychological dependency on the ventilator that can keep patient’s hostage to that ventilator, and once you can break through that, hopefully then this lady can come off the ventilator.

And then obviously, we were also talking about whether this lady can go home with Intensive Care at Home? Absolutely, yes. Like if you go to our other website, intensivecareathome.com, where we provide Intensive Care at Home services for predominantly long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomies, it’s definitely an option for this lady to go home. And if you want to know more about home care for Intensive Care at Home, go to intensivecareathome.com and find out more information there.

Now, we are with Intensive Care at Home currently operating all around Australia and all major capital cities, including regional and remote areas. We are predominantly NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme), TAC (Transport Accident Commission), DVA (Department of Veteran Affairs), and iCare funded nursing service providers. But also, given that we cut the cost of an intensive care bed by 50%, hospitals will have an interest in this, and Departments of Health have an interest in this because not many people can claim they can cut the cost of an ICU bed by 50%, but we can. So, there’s more information there. And if you are in the U.S. watching this, you should contact us as well if you need help in the United States for Intensive Care at Home. We can help you. Please contact us.

Now, 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].

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, and we answer all questions. intensive care and Intensive Care at Home related.

If you need a medical record review for your loved one in intensive care, we can help with that as well. Please contact us at intensivecarehotline.com or intensivecareathome.com as well. We provide medical record reviews for patients in intensive care in real-time, so you can actually have a second opinion in real-time. But we also review medical records after intensive care if you need closure, have unanswered questions, or you’re simply suspecting medical negligence. We also provide NDIS nursing assessments if you need help with that. Thank you so much for watching.

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, what questions and insights 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.

Take care.