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The ICU Team Told Us My Dad’s Off All Sedation. With Your Help We Found Out the Opposite is True! Quick Tip for Families in Intensive Care!

Today, I’m giving you more reasons why you need to get access to medical records as quickly as possible when you have a loved one critically ill in intensive care.

My name is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com, and this is another quick tip for families in intensive care.

So currently, we are working with one of our clients who has their loved one critically ill in intensive care after cardiac arrest and hypoxic brain injury. The gentleman is 68 years of age. He has been intubated now for about 3 weeks. What’s interesting is that the intensive care team very early on said that the “best interest” option here is to let their husband and father die. The family, of course, objected to it because they said their husband and father would want to live. They would want, and he would want everything to be done. Then, the intensive care team came back and said, “Only we know what’s best for a patient,” which is completely ridiculous, by the way. They don’t even know the man besides the man’s diagnosis. They don’t know his personality. They don’t know the family dynamics.

But lo and behold, the family reached out to us and we went on a journey together. Of course, we were helping them with the advocacy. Initially, the intensive care team was saying, “His EEG (electroencephalogram) was poor, the MRI scan was poor, the CT scan of the brain was poor, and there’s brain damage,” but they were never willing to share the medical records with the family, even though it’s actually a family’s right to look at the medical records.

The first thing that you should question here is, what is it that the intensive care team has to hide? This is what I’ve been saying for the longest here. Intensive care teams don’t even tell you half of what’s going on, and they only tell you the things that they want you to hear or they think you need to hear like, “Oh it’s not in the ‘best interest’ of your family member to live.” What a whole lot of rubbish. What is not in the best interest for your family member to live? It is in the interest of someone to live unless they don’t want to, of course. That is not the case here, but it’s getting better.

So when we got involved, I asked the family about Glasgow Coma Scale and how awake is their father, and they said, “Look, he’s sort of slowly waking up.” Then I asked them, “Is he still on any sedation?” They said, “No, he’s not on any sedation.” And I said, can they please verify by getting access to the medical records by taking pictures of infusions that are going in and they still couldn’t get access to the medical records.

Again, that’s actually illegal. This is actually a client in the U.K. The patient is a patient in an NHS (National Health Service) hospital. It is actually illegal. Families have the right to get access to the medical records as quickly as possible. If the NHS hospital can’t provide that, once again, you have to ask the question, “What is it they have to hide? What is it that you can’t see?”

Once again, always use common sense. Don’t let anyone dissuade you from using common sense, and what’s reasonable and necessary. Also, they then send pictures from the patient at the bedside, taking pictures of ventilators, monitors, infusions that are going in, it turned out that the gentleman was still on propofol. Propofol is a sedative. You can look it up.

What’s propofol? Propofol is a sedative. So, the bottom line is, the intensive care team was blatantly lying into the family’s face and saying, “Oh, he has been off sedation for 4 or 5 days, and he’s not waking up.” Now, it turns out that he still was on propofol. He still was on sedation.

This is why I’m saying, the biggest challenge for families in intensive care is 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. That is exactly what you are up against in most cases.

Unfortunately, you can’t trust intensive care teams in these situations, especially when they are overtly trying to end your loved one’s life because they want to free up an ICU bed because they think they’re the only ones who know what’s best for a patient.

Then, they also offered the family psychological support to deal with the end of life of their loved ones and they said, “Look, we don’t need psychological support, because we can handle everything that is happening here by ourselves. We don’t need your mercy. All we want to do is have our husband and father live and give him a chance.” Because it also turned out that the intensive care team never suggested a tracheostomy as an option.

Again, misleading the family, not being open and transparent. This is why it’s so good if you reach out to us. We always have options for you that the intensive care team, 9 times out of 10, has not even shared with you. That’s why I’m saying, they’re not even telling you half of what’s going on. You need that insider view from someone that understands intensive care inside out because otherwise you’ll be getting the shorter end of the stick.

Clearly, here in this situation, number one, family was told the patient is not on any sedation. That was a lie. Two, tracheostomy was never suggested. So again, critical information was withheld. The care and treatment options have not been made transparent. Fair enough, families in intensive care don’t know what to look at, I get it but that’s why you need help. If you’re not getting help and you’re coming to us when it’s too late, that’s what it is. It’s getting help too late. Don’t do that, you need to get help from Day 1.

So, I hope that helps you understand that you need to question everything. What you see in intensive care is not always what you get very rarely, is it? What you see is what you get. You need the interpretation of information that’s being thrown at you or you need to know what to look for, what’s being withheld from you, because lots of things are being withheld from you, and you just don’t know about it.

But every time we are working with the client, 1 to 1, we are bringing things to the forefront. We find out what they haven’t told you. We find out what you need to know. We find out what questions you need to ask to make sure you make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power and influence.

So I hope that helps you to improve your life instantly when you have a loved one critically ill in intensive care.

I have worked in critical care nursing for 25 years in three different countries, where I worked as a nurse manager for over 5 years in critical care. I’ve been consulting and advocating for families in intensive care since 2013 here at intensivecarehotline.com. I can very confidently say that we have saved many lives for our clients in intensive care.

You can verify that if you go to our intensivecarehotline.com testimonial section at intensivecarehotline.com or if you go to intensivecarehotline.com podcast section where we have done client interviews. Because our advice is absolutely life changing, the sooner you get help, the higher chances are that you will make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power, influence, making sure your loved one gets best care and treatment always. The sooner you get help when you have a loved one critically ill in intensive care, the higher chances are you will get the results and outcomes that you want, need, and deserve.

You can join a growing number of members and clients that we have helped over the years to improve their lives instantly, making sure they make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power, and influence, making sure their loved ones get best care and treatment always.

That’s why I do one on one consulting and advocacy over the phone, Zoom, Skype, WhatsApp, 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 can’t afford to get wrong. I make sure you ask the right questions. I make sure you understand everything that’s happening with your critically ill loved one so that you can ask the right questions and get the right outcomes. I also talk to doctors and nurses directly on your behalf or with you or I set you up with the right questions. I’ll make sure I ask all the questions that you haven’t even considered asking but must be asked when you have a loved one critically ill in intensive care.

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 do medical record reviews after intensive care if you have unanswered questions, if you need closure, or if you are suspecting medical negligence.

We also have a membership for families of critically ill patients in intensive care. 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 videos and 21 e-books that only are exclusively accessible to our members. All of that will help you to make Informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power and influence, making sure your loved one gets best care and treatment always.

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

If you like my videos, subscribe to 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 where I answer your questions live on a show. You will get notification for the YouTube live if you are a subscriber to my YouTube channel, or if you are a subscriber to my intensivecarehotline.com email newsletter at intensivecarehotline.com.

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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