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Can My Husband After Lung Transplant and Failed Weaning Off Ventilator & Tracheostomy Go Home?

Today, I have an email from a subscriber who has her husband in ICU after the lung transplant, and he can’t be liberated off the ventilator and the tracheostomy. I’m just wondering if he can go home. So, I’ve got the answer to that question today.

My name is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com and let’s read out the email from Maeve who says,

“Hi Patrik,

My husband’s lung transplant was back in May, and after 5 really hard months, he was finally liberated from the ventilator, and then he was ready to go to rehab.

After only one week, he developed a pneumonia in rehab which was already starting and not properly addressed by the rehab facility. He was back in ICU needing full ventilator support just within a couple of days.

This ICU tried a different kind of weaning called volume support. The other ones always did pressure support. My husband was so calm and relaxed on it and was doing very well.

So now, my husband is very anxious again since they changed back to pressure support. And because he’s anxious, his CO2 (carbon dioxide) levels are always high on the pressure support, and no one will listen to us.

They have my husband labeled as “unmotivated and anxious”, which has changed how every treating team treats him. Because of that, I want him at home and weaning off the ventilator and tracheostomy at home. Please let me know how you can help.

I’m not sure if my husband will ever be truly liberated from a ventilator and the tracheostomy, but at this point in time, I just want him home and somewhere where he’s treated kindly.”

Well, thank you, Maeve for writing in and I’m very sorry to hear that your husband is still on a ventilator and that they are changing the ventilation settings back and forth, and they’re not sticking with what seems to work for him. It’s very sad to hear.

It’s also very sad to hear that they’re labelling him as “unmotivated and anxious”, because clearly, he has shown that on some ventilator settings, he can be weaned off the ventilator, and it’s very sad to hear that you feel like he’s not treated kindly. That’s very sad, actually, that health professionals, whether the doctors, nurses are judging your husband for the choices that he wants to make.

In any case, this sounds like we can definitely take your husband home. There shouldn’t be an issue here in taking him home. We are looking after ventilated and tracheostomy clients at home, especially since he’s been in ICU for so long now, the cost is spiraling out of control, not that this should ever be a cost issue. It should be a patient care issue, not a cost issue. But if your husband is not on inotropes, if he’s medically stable, and mainly issue is weaning off the ventilator, then absolutely, we should take him home.

We can set you up with the equipment that he needs, ventilators, suction machines, monitors. We can help you with the funding side of things, with the advocacy, who’s going to pay for it.

But regardless, the cost of Intensive Care at Home is around 50%, 5-0, of the cost of an intensive care bed. Therefore, it is a win-win situation, and it makes perfect sense. Then once that’s handled, then we can create a team of critical care nurses that are suited to work in your home and can help your husband to get off that ventilator.

So, with all of that said, with Intensive Care at Home, we are sending our critical care nurses into the home, 24 hours a day, and therefore, we are providing a genuine alternative to a long-term stay in intensive care for ventilation, tracheostomy, Home BIPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure), Home CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure), ventilation without tracheostomy, tracheostomy without ventilation, Home TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition), home IV potassium infusions, and home IV magnesium infusions. We’re also providing ventilation weaning at home. We’re also providing central line management, PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line management, Hickman’s line management, as well as port-a-cath management. We’re also providing palliative care at home, we’re also providing nasogastric tube management, and PEG (Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy) tube management at home.

We’re also sending our critical care nurses into the home for emergency department bypass services. We have done so successfully as part of the Western Sydney Local Area Health District, their in-touch program, saving approximately $2,000 per patient that we keep at home instead of going to the emergency department.

Like I said, we’re therefore also in a position to cut the cost of an intensive care bed by around 50%. An intensive care bed costs around $5,000 to $6,000 per bed day. Our service costs between $2,500 to $3,000 per bed day, and we’re freeing up the most sought-after bed in the hospital, which is the ICU bed. Most importantly, we’re improving the quality of life for patients and their families. So, it’s a win-win situation for all stakeholders.

With Intensive Care at Home, we’re currently operating all around Australia in all major capital cities as well as in all regional and rural areas. We are an NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) approved service provider all around Australia, TAC (Transport Accident Commission) and WorkSafe in Victoria, iCare in New South Wales, NIISQ (National Injury Insurance Scheme in Queensland), as well as the Department of Veteran Affairs all around Australia. Our clients and we, as a provider, have also received funding through public hospitals, private health funds, as well as Departments of Health.

We are the only service provider in Australia that has achieved third-party accreditation for Intensive Care at Home nursing in 2025. We have been achieving this level of accreditation since 2012. No other provider has achieved this high level of accreditation in the community and has created more intellectual property for Intensive Care at Home nursing than we have. That puts us in a position to employ hundreds of years of critical care nursing experience combined in the community. No other service provider in 2025 employs a higher skill level in the community than we do, which enables us to look after the highest acuity adults and children in the community in Australia safely.

If you’re at home already and you’re watching this and you realize that you don’t have the right level of support, I’ll give you a very tangible example today. One of our first clients over 10 years ago was a client who was at home on a ventilator with a tracheostomy with a support worker model 24/7. Of course, support workers cannot look after a client at home on a ventilator with a tracheostomy. That is like flying the airplane with the cabin crew instead of the pilot because anyone on a ventilator with a tracheostomy is at very high risk of medical emergency or dying if they don’t have critical care nurses looking after them 24/7, as is evidence-based, and as is documented on the Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines that you can find on our website.

So, eventually, this client found out about us. We were proving our concept with this client very quickly. When we worked with the client, we send him intensive care nurses, 24 hours a day, he never ever went back into ICU ever again, and we were proving our concept there very fast.

We can do the same for you if you’re not safe at home, which includes the advocacy for funding that goes along with it. We have always successfully advocated for our clients, otherwise, we wouldn’t be in business.

This is also why we’re providing Level 2 and Level 3 NDIS Support Coordination. We have a team of NDIS Support Coordinators, and they have a wealth of knowledge. I’ve done an interview with Amanda Riches, one of our NDIS Support Coordinators, and we’ll put a link to an interview with Amanda in the written version of this blog below the video. We’re also providing TAC case management and WorkSafe case management in Victoria with Lucy McCotter.

If you’re an NDIS Support Coordinator or a case manager from another organization watching this and you’re looking for nursing care for your participants, please reach out to us as well. If you’re looking for funding for nursing care for your participants and you don’t know how to go about it, and what evidence to provide, I encourage you to reach out to us as well. We can help you with the right level of funding and with the right level of advocacy. We’re also providing NDIS specialist nursing assessments done by critical care nurses with a legal nurse consulting background.

If you are a critical care nurse and you’re looking for a career change and you want to join a very progressive, dynamic, high performing team of critical care nurses in the community, we are employing hundreds of years of critical care nursing experience combined. If you’re looking for a career change, we are currently hiring for jobs for critical care nurses in now in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, in Albury, Wodonga, in Bendigo, in Geelong, and in Warragul in Victoria. If you have worked in critical care nursing for a minimum of 2 years pediatric ICU, ED, and you have already completed a postgraduate critical care nursing qualification, we will be delighted to hearing from you.

I have a disclaimer, because we are offering a tailor-made solution for our clients, which includes regular staff, our clients do want the same staff coming over and over again, because they are so vulnerable and so special, and that’s why we need regular staff. So, if you’re looking for agency work where you can come and go, this won’t be the right fit for you. We are looking for consistency and our clients are looking for consistency. So please, only apply with us if you can give us regular and consistent availability for shifts, and you’re really keen on building relationships with us and with our clients.

If you’re an intensive care specialist or an ED specialist, we also want to hear from you. We’re currently expanding our medical team as well. We can also help you eliminate your bed blocks in ICU and ED for your long-term patients or for your regularly readmitting patients with our critical care nursing team at home, we’re here to help you take the pressure off your ICU, ED beds, and in most cases, you won’t even pay for it. Even if you do pay for it, it’s much more cost-effective than what you’re paying in ICU and ED for.

If you’re a hospital executive watching this and you have bed blocks in your ICU, ED, respiratory wards, please reach out to us as well. We can help you there fast.

If you’re in the U.S. or in the U.K. and you’re watching this and you need help, we want to hear from you as well. We can help you there privately and with one-on-one consulting.

Once again, our website is intensivecareathome.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or simply send us an email to [email protected].

If you like my videos, subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families with Intensive Care at Home and intensive care, click the like button, click the notification bell, share this video with your friends and families, and leave your comment below, what you want to see next, what do you think about today’s topics, and what insights you have from today’s video.

Thank you so much for watching.

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

Take care for now.