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Hi it’s Patrik Hutzel from INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME where we provide tailor made solutions for long-term ventilated Adults & Children with Tracheostomies and where we also provide tailor made solutions for hospitals and Intensive Care Units whilst providing quality services for long-term ventilated patients and medically complex patients at home.
In last week’s blog, I talked about,
CAN YOUR SERVICE AT INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME HELP MY WIFE TO WEAN OFF THE VENTILATOR AT HOME?
You can check out last week’s blog by clicking on the link below this video:
In today’s blog post, I want to answer a question from one of our clients and the question today is
What Can Intensive Care at Home Offer my 57-year old Mom with Tracheostomy?
Hi Patrik,
My mom has been in intensive care now for two weeks and she has gone into ICU with COVID pneumonia. And she’s on high oxygen levels and on high PEEP. And we are at day 14 today.
The palliative care doctor wants a decision by myself and my family within the next few days, whether we should be ending her life because she’s saying, “Well, she won’t have any quality of life even if she will survive it and she will be disabled. And she will need help for the rest of her life if she does survive this ICU stay.” Or the other option they’re giving us if we want to consent to tracheostomy instead, once her FIO2 and PEEP has come down eventually, but they’re not sure whether that can be achieved or not. The palliative care doctor had not inquired with ICU doctor to inquire if the tracheostomy would be temporary, and also if she needs dialysis in the long term, because at the moment she’s on dialysis or she has been on dialysis for the last few days.
Thank you very much for the services that you offer. We are wondering that if she has a tracheostomy, what Intensive Care at Home could offer for her. We are in Sydney, Australia. My mom is only 57. What are our options?
From Drew
Hi Drew,
Thank you so much for your question. I’m very sorry to hear about your mom’s situation.
Now, at such a young age at 57 years of age, the palliative care doctor should not be talking about palliative care, but to rather consult with the intensive care team, what to do next in order to save your mom’s life. She may not have any quality of life going forward, or may not have any perceived quality of life going forward, but nobody knows and nobody has a crystal ball. And ICUs and palliative care are very poor at predicting what life looks like outside of intensive care once people survive. Furthermore, ICUs especially at the moment are still under high pressure, i.e. if they end your mom’s life, they can empty in bed that they have very high demand for. So you should be asking all the right questions in order to make the right decision for your mom.
Once she has a tracheostomy, then you can absolutely look at home care if she can’t come off the ventilator, especially if she’s 57, she will qualify for the NDIS. And the NDIS will fund home care for ventilation and tracheostomy assuming your mom can’t come off the ventilator and tracheostomy in hospital for whatever reason.
So the options are definitely there. You should definitely buy some time there. Ask them to continue treatment, clear the pneumonia, hopefully, and then once the pneumonia is cleared and her FIO2 and PEEP has come down, then look at the tracheostomy. Hopefully she can take the next steps and then if she can’t come off the ventilator in ICU, can’t come off the tracheostomy, then you should absolutely look at Intensive Care at Home. And you’re doing the ICU a favor there as well by helping them to empty their ICU bed.
But now when it comes to the NDIS, you will need to obviously apply there to become a participant for your mom, but we can help you with that. You should reach out to us so we can help you with the next steps. We also provide specialist support coordination under the NDIS, that can help you with the funding. So please contact us at your earliest convenience. Just go to our website, intensivecareathome.com and call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website, or send us an email to [email protected].
You definitely do not want your mom in ICU long-term. And even if she can’t come off the ventilator, just as a side note, maybe she’ll come to the point where she’s awake and she can make her own decisions rather than palliative care or intensive care making decisions for her. Hopefully she’ll come to a point where she can wake up. You haven’t mentioned anything about brain damage, where she can wake up and come to the point where she can make her own decisions. So she’s not beholden to the decisions of anyone. I think that’s a good idea, too.
Take care for now. And we’ll talk soon.
Now, if you have a loved one in intensive care and you want to go home with our service intensive care at home and if you want to find out how to get funding for our service and how it all works, please contact us on one of the numbers on the top of our website, or send me an email to [email protected]. That’s Patrik, just with a K at the end.
Please also have a look at our case studies because there we highlight more about what we can do for clients, how clients can live at home with ventilation and tracheostomies and you can look at our case studies as well at our service section.
Intensive care at home Case studies
And if you are at home already and you need support for your critically ill loved one at home, and you have insufficient support or insufficient funding, please contact us as well. We can help you with all of that.
And if you are an intensive care nurse or a pediatric intensive care nurse with a minimom of two years, ICU or pediatric ICU experience, and you ideally have a critical care certificate, please contact us as well. Check out our career section on our website. We are currently hiring ICU and pediatric ICU nurses for clients in the Melbourne metropolitan area, Northern suburbs, Mornington Peninsula, Frankston area, South Gippsland, as well as Wollongong in New South Wales.
www.intensivecareathome.com/careers
So we are also an NDIS, TAC (Victoria) and DVA (Department of Veteran affairs) approved community service provider in Australia. Also have a look at our range of full service provisions.
Also, we have been part of the Royal Melbourne health accelerator program in the past for innovative healthcare companies.
https://www.thermh.org.au/news/innovation-funding-announced-melbourne-health-accelerator
https://www.melbournehealthaccelerator.com/
Thank you for watching this video and thank you for tuning into this week’s blog.
This is Patrik from intensive care at home, and I’ll see you again next week in another update.