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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 by improving their Quality of life and where we also provide tailor made solutions to hospitals and Intensive Care Units to save money and resources, whilst providing Quality Care!

In the last blog I talked about

Can you be discharged from hospital with ventilator, tracheostomy and feeding tube?

You can check out last week’s blog here.

In today’s blog I want to talk about 6 year old Ana- Carolina in Auckland, New Zealand who lived in PICU for almost all of her life. Ana- Carolina’s and her parents Elane and Peter’s ordeal is finally coming to an end and she can go home!

After nearly 6 years in PICU, Ana-Carolina can finally go home! Or the right place for a ventilated child!

It’s been nearly 6 years or 2,117 days to be exact since Ana-Carolina has been admitted to Starship paediatric ICU in Auckland, New Zealand.

Diagnosed with a mystery condition, Ana- Carolina has been tracheostomised and ventilated since she was 5 months old.

After a long battle with the health authorities in New Zealand, Ana- Carolina can finally leave PICU at Starship hospital in Auckland, New Zealand.

Ana- Carolina and her parents have long been denied speciality home intensive care nursing services that are readily available in Australia and in many other European countries for many years.

In the meantime whilst Ana- Carolina’s parents had to fight the health authorities to get funding for home care, the cost for Ana- Carolina’s intensive care bed was ~$5,000 per bed day and a total of $9.2 Million.

This cost could have been cut in less than half if a specialist and intensive care substitution service like INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME could have provided home care services.

A discharge home would have been possible many years ago as soon as Ana-Carolina was medically stable and off inotropes/vasopressors.

Whilst New Zealand health authorities refused to acknowledge the right for Ana-Carolina to go home the cost for her care in PICU kept spiralling out of control and Ana-Carolina and her parents had no quality of life whatsoever!

Whilst Ana-Carolina occupied a PICU bed for nearly 6 years, many other children in need of a critical care bed were unable to access this precious PICU bed.

On top of Ana-Carolina and her parents “living” in PICU for nearly 6 years, Elane and Peter had to fight to keep Ana-Carolina alive as the PICU at Starship wanted to stop Ana-Carolina’s life support!

Her parents have fought a tremendous and successful fight with a great outcome by keeping Ana-Carolina alive and also by finally taking her home.

We have written about Ana-Carolina before and here are links to previous blog posts and videos

• THE LITTLE GIRL TRAPPED BETWEEN HOSPITAL AND HOME!

• ANA-CAROLINA HAS BEEN IN PICU FOR OVER 1,000 DAYS, WHEN CAN SHE GO HOME?

Here is also a newspaper article from the Newshub in New Zealand reporting about Ana-Carolina’s discharge from PICU home

Ana Carolina spends first night at home with parents after almost a lifetime in hospital

She’s been battling a rare illness since she was a toddler but her parents say she’s finally got a fresh start.

Waking up in a bedroom of their very own is a daily occurrence for most 6-year-olds but for Ana-Carolina, it’s a first.

“It’s like a dream that we’ve had for a long time and we couldn’t believe today is the day,” her mother Elane de Moraes Lobo told Newshub.

For Ana-Carolina’s parents it’s a chance to finally unpack and give their daughter a home. Yesterday Ana-Carolina’s parents were given the all-clear to take their daughter home.

She had lived almost her entire life in Starship’s intensive care ward.

“It’s 2,117 days of medical shifts. It’s just a lifetime really,” said her father Peter Bircham.

Ana-Carolina was born healthy but was diagnosed with a mystery condition when she was just five months old.

It’s been a battle all the way. As well as caring for Ana-Caroline up to 20 hours a day her parents have also been fighting Auckland DHB.

The tussle erupted over the right place for a ventilated child.

“We pretty much had to fight to keep her alive initially. Over time they saw that children could be at home,” said Elane.

Now that she’s home and they’re looking for staff to help provide fulltime care.

Once that’s sorted Bircham will finally be able to return to work. But for now, the family is looking forward to the simple pleasures.

“Having breakfast together and taking Anna-Carolina to the supermarket to sit on the couch and watch a movie as a family,” he said.

A chance for a normal life, enjoying the things many take for granted.

Newshub.

If you want to find out how we can help you to get your loved one out of Intensive Care including palliative care or Long-term acute care (also nursing home) or if you find that you have insufficient support for your loved one at home on a ventilator, if you want to know how to get funding for our service or if you have any questions please send me an email to [email protected] or call on one of the numbers below.

Australia/New Zealand +61 41 094 2230

USA/Canada +1 415-915-0090

UK/Ireland +44 118 324 3018

Also, check out our careers section here

www.intensivecareathome.com/careers

We are currently hiring ICU/PICU nurses for clients in the Melbourne metropolitan area, northern suburbs, Mornington Peninsula and in South Gippsland/Victoria.

We are 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 here

http://intensivecareathome.com/services

We have also been part of the Royal Melbourne health accelerator program for innovative health care companies last year!

https://www.thermh.org.au/news/innovation-funding-announced-melbourne-health-accelerator

https://www.melbournehealthaccelerator.com/

Thank you for tuning into this week’s blog.

This is Patrik Hutzel from INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME and I see you again next week in another update!