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Quick Tip for Families in Intensive Care: The ICU Team Wants to Withdraw Life Support on My 35-Year-Old Sister After Cardiac Arrest! Help!

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

So today, I have an email from Anthony who says,

“Hi Patrik,

Please help. Tomorrow, the doctors want to end life support after only 4 days in ICU for my 35-year-old sister. She has been in perfect health. No pre-existing condition.

Suddenly, she went into cardiac arrest 4 days ago. She had CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) within 2 minutes. The EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians) brought her back to stable after another 8 minutes. Apparently, she has an anoxic brain injury. Arrival to ICU first vitals/pressure looked amazing, the nurse told us. Now, the doctors are saying no need to continue life support.

I can’t live knowing I didn’t try anything to save her life. The doctors say they have no idea what happened. I don’t believe them at all.

From, Anthony.”

Thank you, Anthony for sharing your sister’s situation. Sounds extremely dramatic and extremely sad.

Now, withdrawing life support against family consent, if a patient can’t give consent themselves, is always premature in my point of view. People always need to have a say if there is an end-of-life situation, how they want to end their life. It’s about quality of end of life.

Now, how can anybody possibly predict that after 4 days in ICU, your sister is not getting any better after maybe weeks, months, years. Who knows? The one thing is for sure. If they stop life support tomorrow, she will be dead and there is no return from that as far as we know but even there are different opinions on that.

In any case, you should not give consent to withdrawing life support. Once again, 4 days in ICU is way too early. You need a second opinion. You need someone like us here at intensivecarehotline.com to look at medical records. You need someone to give you hope because, once again, after 4 days in ICU, it is way too early. It would be way too early after 8 days in ICU. It would be too early after 80 days in ICU. Not all options have been looked at.

Why would they stop life support on someone that they can keep alive at such a young age? That doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever. Do they need an ICU bed? Do they have pressure on their ICU bed? Do they have pressure on their ICU resources? Is your sister on high doses of life support besides the ventilation? Is she on high doses of inotropes or vasopressors? Is she on ECMO (Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) after cardiac arrest? Is she on a balloon pump? You haven’t mentioned any of it, how are they supporting her. But regardless, it is too early.

That is my advice after having worked in intensive care for nearly 25 years in three different countries where I also worked as a nurse unit manager and I have been consulting and advocating for families in intensive care for nearly 11 years since 2013, all around the world. We have saved many lives with our consulting and advocacy because we are specialized on patient and family rights in intensive care.

So, we haven’t really had a client that had treatment withdrawn against family consent because of our advice, because of our advocacy, I can say. We have 100% success rate with the difference that if clients don’t follow our advice, that’s when things go pear-shaped.  But if clients do follow our advice, they work closely with us, we always can turn this situation around and we always have. There’s also a podcast where we have a client testimonial about how we turn the situation like that around and we’ve done it many times. So, there is a proven concept.

In any case, you should be making decisions today that you don’t regret in 12 months’ time. Do you think you might be regretting giving consent to withdraw life support on your 35-year-old sister? I think you would.

We have many families reaching out to us saying, “Hey, my mom, my dad, whoever passed away last year in ICU, we gave consent to “pull the plug”, withdraw life support. We didn’t know there were consultants and advocates out there. We just thought ICU team knows everything.” Well, I’m a big believer that God gives life and God takes life. In the meantime, you got to do your best to live life and to keep people alive, and that’s my belief.

What is your belief? What do you want for your sister? It doesn’t sound to me like you want for your sister to die, and that’s what you should be advocating for, but we can give you all the in-depth insights, how to do it. Also, you should get access to the medical records, and you need a second opinion on this very, very urgently.

People have improved and/or recovered from anoxic brain injuries because especially you’re saying that blood pressure looks okay, that means she’s probably not on inotrope. So, the only form of life support your sister might be on is actually the ventilator. That’s the only form of life support she might need to be weaned off.

If there are discussions around quality of life, that she won’t have any quality of life. Well, what is quality of life? That is in the eye of the beholder. It is not up to anyone to judge anyone’s quality of life. It is up to the eye of the beholder.

Also, there’s plenty of time to talk about end of life, plenty of time. What’s the urgency here to talk about end of life? What’s the rush to kill someone? What is the rush? So, plenty of questions that need to be asked and we can help you with to turn the situation around.

That’s also why we created a membership for families of critically ill patients in intensive care at intensivecarehotline.com. When you click on the membership link, you can get access there or you can go to intensivecaresupport.org to become a member of our membership for families of critically ill patients. In the membership, 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.

I also offer one-on-one consulting and advocacy over the phone, Skype, Zoom, WhatsApp, whichever medium works best for you. I’ll make sure you make informed decisions, you have peace of mind, control, power, and influence. I’ll make sure your loved one gets best care and treatment while they are in ICU.

We also offer medical record reviews as part of our membership and as part of our phone consulting and advocacy so that you can have a second opinion in real time and so that you can make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power, and influence.

I also represent you in family meetings with intensive care teams making sure you know what to say, you know how to say it, you know what not to say. Once again, all with the goal of you making informed decisions, having peace of mind, control, power, and influence to make sure your loved one gets best care and treatment. In our question today from Anthony, his sister certainly doesn’t get best care and treatment if they are wanting to withdraw life support after only 4 days in ICU. We also offer medical record review 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].

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, share the video with your friends and families, and comment below what you want to see next, what questions and insights you have.

I also do a weekly YouTube live. Get on my email subscriber list at intensivecarehotline.com and you will get notification for the weekly YouTube live where you can ask questions live on the show.

Thanks for watching.

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

Take care for now.