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Quick Tip for Families in Intensive Care: My Loved One in ICU Needs a Tracheostomy in Another Hospital, Can You Help with a Hospital Transfer?

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

Today, I have an email from Jamie who says,

“Hi Patrik,

My family member is in ICU, needs a tracheostomy to be weaned off the ventilator. The surgeons and the ICU team do not want to perform the tracheostomy surgery saying she needs to be transferred to a tertiary hospital, and we can’t get her transferred because apparently, there is no bed in one of those tertiary hospitals.

Is this something that you can assist us with?”

Absolutely, we have helped families in intensive care to get beds in other ICUs, to get a transfer organized including international transfers. That’s how far we’ve gone with our work with intensivecarehotline.com in terms of finding suitable ICU beds for patients far away from their families. Certainly, something we have done over the years.

But before you even go down that track of saying your family member needs a tracheostomy to be weaned off the ventilator, well, the first question that you should be asking here is, “Is the ICU team doing everything beyond the shadow of a doubt to wean your family member off the ventilator, take the breathing tube out, and avoid the tracheostomy? Have you asked that very question? What are they doing to avoid the tracheostomy?

Now, I’ve written an article and made a video about, “How to Wean Critically Ill Patient Off the Ventilator and the Breathing Tube?”, and I encourage you to check out that article as a first step. Now, without having more information, I can’t really tell you whether your family member needing a tracheostomy or not is accurate. It could be that if the hospital your family member is currently in can’t perform a tracheostomy, I argue, their skill level there is probably very low.

A tracheostomy in an ICU in a hospital is almost a standard procedure and, in some ICUs, they don’t even go to the operating room. They do the tracheostomy in ICU done by an ICU consultant. It’s a 30 to 45-minute procedure, so you have to consider all of that. What is the experience level? Can the tracheostomy be done locally? Because then, the transfer is also easier to arrange, it’s also safer.  But the first question is, can the tracheostomy be avoided? That is the first question you need to ask here.

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. It’s critically important that in a situation like that, you get a second opinion which is also something we do here at intensivecarehotline.com.

I strongly encourage you to get access to the medical records for your family member, and I strongly encourage you that you and I get on a call with the doctors and ask some questions and ask all the right questions. I will ask questions that you haven’t even considered asking but must be asked in a situation like that, so that you can make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power, and influence, making sure your loved one gets best care and treatment while they are in ICU.

I’ve worked in critical care and nursing for nearly 25 years in three different countries where I worked as a nurse manager for over 5 years and where I have been consulting and advocating for families in intensive care here at intensivecarehotline.com since 2013. I can confidently and without the slightest hint of exaggeration, say that we have saved many lives here with our consulting and advocacy. You can verify that at intensivecarehotline.com on our testimonial section or you can listen to our intensivecarehotline.com podcast where we’ve done some client interviews, verifying the work that we have done.

That’s also why we have created a membership for families of critically ill patients in intensive care, and you can become a member if you go to intensivecarehotline.com if you click on the membership link or if you go to intensivecaresupport.org directly. In the membership, you have access to me and my team, 24 hours a day, in the membership area and via email, and we answer all questions intensive care related. In the membership, you also have exclusive access to 21 eBooks and 21 videos that I have personally written and recorded for families of critically ill patients in intensive care, sharing all my 2.5 decades worth of experience with you and with our members. Once again, making sure you make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power, and influence, making sure your loved one gets best care and treatment.

I also do one-on-one consulting and advocacy over the phone, Zoom, WhatsApp, Skype, whichever medium works best for you. I talk to you and your families directly. I handhold you through this once-in-a-lifetime situation that you simply can’t afford to get wrong. I also talk to doctors and nurses directly on your behalf.

I also represent you in family meetings with intensive care teams.

We also do medical record reviews in real-time so that you can get a second opinion in real-time. We also offer medical record reviews after intensive care if you have unanswered questions, if you need closure, or if you are suspecting medical negligence.

All of that you get at intensivecarehotline.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or send us an email to [email protected] with your questions.

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, and what questions and insights you have from this video, and share this video with your friends and families.

I also do a weekly YouTube live where I answer your questions live on the show and you will get a notification for the YouTube live if you’re a subscriber to my YouTube channel, or if you’re a subscriber to our email newsletter at intensivecarehotline.com.

If you want your email answered quickly, leave a donation here on the super chat button and I will read your email out in the next couple of days and answer your question. I have so many emails sitting in my inbox from the last six months. I’m barely keeping up, but you can speed up the process by leaving a donation and if you want to leave a donation anyway to support our work, we very much appreciate it. It will help us to do more videos for families in intensive care and help as many families in intensive care all around the world.

Thank you so much for watching.

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

Take care for now.

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