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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, including home TPN.
In last week’s blog, I talked about,
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
Can My 59-year-old Dad Go Home with Intensive Care at Home After Stroke & Tracheostomy & Ventilation?
Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com where we provide tailor-made solutions for long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomy at home instead of intensive care, and where we provide a genuine alternative to a long-term stay in Intensive Care at Home. There, we also provide a quality alternative and a cost-effective alternative to an intensive care bed because we cut the cost of an intensive care bed by around 50%, and we free up the most sought-after bed in a hospital, which is the intensive care bed. But most importantly, we are providing quality of life and in some instances, quality of end-of-life for our clients and for their families. We also provide home TPN as well as BIPAP and CPAP non-invasive ventilation at home as well.
So, I’ve got a long email from a reader today that I want to read out and answer, because in this email, I can illustrate best how we can help families in intensive care. So, Tammy writes,
Hi Patrik,
I found your article on loved ones with a tracheostomy, very compelling. This is the article I’m referencing, and the article is, “When can a tracheostomy be removed?” And I will link to that article below this video.
I think we could use your help and guidance but have no idea where to start. We have my 59-year-old father who’s currently in ICU. And here are the specific, my dad had a stroke in late July of 2022. Now at the time of me recording this video, it’s November 2022.
He went into emergency, and I’ll leave out the name of the hospital. He went into emergency at ‘X’ hospital and had surgery, removing a clot from his brain, and cleared out the carotid artery. The right side was severely affected with no movement from head to toe, which is also known as a hemiparesis. After a couple of weeks, he still wasn’t waking up in ICU and he received a tracheostomy. So, that would’ve been mid-August by then.
After that, he received excellent physical therapy, including speech and occupational therapy. After another two weeks, he had tremendous improvement. The right side was improved, raising of the hand and movement in the foot. He could speak clearly when mimicking another person. He was speaking on his own, but words were not clear. And he was sitting up in a chair. My dad now, at that stage, was totally cognizant and aware but at some stage he couldn’t be weaned off a ventilator. And the ICU, more or less, further declined to look after him because he had nowhere to go. He couldn’t be moved to a ward. And they, more or less, were suggesting that he won’t have any quality of life with a ventilator and a tracheostomy. But then I found your website with Intensive Care at Home, and that’s when I thought this could be a solution.
But before we were even getting there, my dad then acquired COVID and then a pneumonia. So, by the end of October, he was still in ICU, and he wasn’t really progressing. If anything, it was getting worse with the COVID. We had to advocate for him that they continue treating him.
And now, as we are in the middle of November, he’s still in ICU. And we really wanted to look at the option of taking my dad home. In reading your articles on your website, it looks like Intensive Care at Home is the best option for my dad. But we are also looking for the chance of my dad to be weaned off the ventilator, and eventually have the tracheostomy removed, have physical therapy resumed, and a chance at quality of life at home.
If you can be of any guidance that would be much appreciated. My father’s life depends on it.
From Tammy
So, Tammy, thank you so much for detailing your dad’s situation. And again, this is right up our alley. This is what we are specialized on. We offer tailor-made solutions for clients like your dad who are stuck in ICU for six months, who have nowhere to go, but ICU teams often pushing for end of life and pushing to withdraw treatment because in their mind, they’re thinking that your dad won’t have any quality of life. Well, nothing could be further from the truth because once your dad is at home, he will have quality of life because there’s no quality of life in an ICU. And especially now that you’re telling me your dad is more awake, he has an awareness of his surroundings. He has an awareness of his family being around. It’s time to look for home care with Intensive Care at Home. So, here is how you go about it.
So, I know from your email that you are in Australia and therefore, you can access the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme). NDIS is funding most of our clients for Intensive Care at Home. And that’s what you should do as well, because now your dad with a stroke that comes under a disability, and the NDIS is all about a disability funding. So, I hope that helps.
The next step really is to reach out to us directly. Give me a call on one of the numbers on the top of our website. If you’re in Australia, you can call me on 041-094-2230 or simply send me an email to [email protected]. That is [email protected]. And then, I can walk you through the steps, how we set up Intensive Care at Home. We can talk to the ICU team. We can talk to the doctors directly. We can create or we can hire the team for you that works for your family environment. We manage equipment that needs to be set up for Intensive Care at Home, so we can walk you through the process. I hope that helps.
If you have a loved one in intensive care and you want to go home or you are at home already and you have insufficient support, please contact us on one of the numbers at intensivecareathome.com or simply send us an email to [email protected].
Also, have a look at our membership for families in intensive care at intensivecaresupport.org. There, you have access to me and my team where we answer all questions, intensive care related, and Intensive Care at Home related, 24 hours a day, via email and in a membership forum.
If you need a medical record review, please contact us as well. We can help you with a medical record review while your loved one is in intensive care or after intensive care, especially if you suspect or if you have any questions around potentially medical negligence and so forth.
Like the video, comment below what you want to see next, or what questions and insights you have, subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families in intensive care, share the video with your friends and families, and click the notification bell.
Thanks for watching.
This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com and I will talk to you in a few days.