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If you want to know if support workers can look after an ICU patient with ventilation and tracheostomy, stay tuned. I’ve got news for you.
So currently, one of our long-standing clients who is on a ventilator with the tracheostomy was funded by the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) for 24-hour nursing care has had a recent NDIS review. The NDIS suggested that the NDIS plan will be slashed from critical care registered nurses to support workers.
Now, many patients in the community have died because of a support worker model instead of critical care nurses when it comes to ventilation and tracheostomy.
Just to illustrate that, when patients at home on ventilation with tracheostomy go to hospital, which they shouldn’t if they’re looked after by a service like Intensive Care at Home with critical care nurses, 24 hours a day, they go into intensive care, and there are no support workers in intensive care whatsoever. There are highly trained and highly skilled intensive care nurses in an intensive care unit. So. why would we treat ventilated adults and children with tracheostomies in the community as second-class citizens? Why?
So, let me illustrate this issue further with a couple of more things. So, when the NDIS makes arbitrary decisions that have cost life, so the NDIS is responsible for killing people in the community, and I have evidence for that because they are not funding what’s evidence-based.
So, number one, when you look at our intensivecareathome.com website, there’s a section Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines. These guidelines are evidence-based and are a result of over 25 years of Intensive Care at Home nursing in Germany and over 12 years of Intensive Care at Home nursing in Australia.
Clearly, clearly the only way to keep a ventilated and tracheostomy adult or child at home safe is with critical care nurses with a minimum of two years critical care nursing experience 24/7 at home. That is the only safe way. Like I said, anything less than that, even with general registered nurses, people have died.
So, the NDIS has been very, very negligent. This case, what I’m talking about today has gone to the AAT (Administrative Appeals Tribunal), thank God for that, and the funding has been reinstated.
But what I also want to illustrate our client has actually reached out two support worker agencies and ask giving them the scenario and saying, “Well, do you want to look after a ventilated and tracheostomy client with support workers?”
Now, here’s what some support worker agencies have said, and this is obviously emails that our client has forwarded to me, “Firstly, I’m so sorry to read that the NDIS have made this incredibly poor decision. I do hope that the review is considered for you or the option of review under the AAT is considered. Secondly, unfortunately, this is not something we would allow any staff except critical care RNs to attend, and even in saying this, we don’t have any critical care RNs who are tracheostomy trained. I can’t even suggest anyone to you who would be suitable.” So, this is from a support worker agency.
Now, here is another email from a support worker agency, “Unfortunately, this would be beyond the capability of a support worker and would need to sit with the CCRN, with the critical care registered nurse, with the skills and requirements you have listed.” So, support worker agencies are refusing, well, and so they should.
Now, think about this when you go on the NDIS website, the NDIS suggests that a support worker can do an e-module online for ventilation and tracheostomy. An e-module that takes a registered nurse to go through Uni for 3 years, then work in intensive care for another 2 years, do postgraduate critical care studies, and the NDIS has the gumption to say an e-module for anyone that you can pick off the street. They might have worked at Cole’s last week, with all respect, and now they’re meant to look after someone that would otherwise be in intensive care.
This is negligence at its best and people like Bill Shorten have blood on their hands and I’m not mincing my words here. I am not mincing my words. I have evidence for everything that I’m saying here. So, they need to get their act together.
The problem is that NDIS planners are non-clinical, they’re not even really reading the nursing reports. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Now, compare this with let’s just say an airplane. The airplane is flown by a pilot who is highly trained, not flown by the cabin crew. So, sending a support worker into the community to look after ventilation and tracheostomy is like flying the airplane with the cabin crew and not with the pilot. Disaster is meant to happen.
Now, just a few couple of months ago from our very trusted network, an NDIS participant with ventilation and tracheostomy had a 24-hour support worker model. Now, I have to stress had a support work model, 24 hours a day. Now, once again, from our trusted network, people have told me that a support worker went out with a ventilated client, didn’t check the battery before they went out, the battery of the ventilator I should say. The battery was already half empty before they went into the community. The ventilator stopped because the battery got depleted and they had no emergency equipment with them.
Do I need to tell you what’s happened with this client? The client passed away in the community because nobody could help them. That is with the support worker model, 24 hours a day.
Once again, Bill Shorten, I hope you sleep well at night. You and your bureaucrats, I hope you sleep well at night. You and your bureaucrats should go to jail for something like this. Where’s the accountability here? Where’s the quality and safety commission?
So, to wrap this all up, with Intensive Care at Home, we are providing 24-hour critical care nurses at home 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 infusion, home IV magnesium infusion. We’re also providing port management, central line management, PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line management, as well as Hickman’s line management, and we’re also providing palliative care services at home.
We’re also sending our critical care nurses into the home for emergency department bypass services. We have done so as part of a program at 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 ED. We’re also cutting 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 is between $2,500 and $3,000 a day and we’re freeing up the ICU bed. So, it’s a win-win situation all around.
Unlike the NDIS, you can’t cut the cost of an ICU bed by 70% which is what the NDIS proposing and people are dying. Maybe that’s what they want. Maybe that is part of the agenda of the NDIS to have people dying to save cost. I’m not trying to be cynical. I’m just watching what’s happening in the environment. That’s all. I’ll leave the judgment to you.
I want to see your comments as well. Leave your comments below, what do you think? Do you want the support worker for your family member to look after your family member or yourself if you’ve been stuck in ICU with ventilation and or tracheostomy for months on end? Think about them.
Now, with Intensive Care at Home, we’re currently operating all around Australia and all major capital cities as well as in regional and rural areas. We are an NDIS approved service provider all around the country, TAC (Transport Accident Commission) in Victoria, WorkSafe in Victoria, iCare in New South Wales, NIISQ (National Injury Insurance Scheme in Queensland), DVA (Department of Veteran Affairs) all around the country. Our clients, 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 2024. We’ve been having this accreditation since 2012. No other provider has achieved that level of accreditation and has created that much intellectual property for Intensive Care at Home nursing than we have. We are therefore in a position to employ hundreds of years of critical care and intensive care nursing experience in the community combined. No other provider in the community brings this much expertise into the community than we do.
If you’re at home already and you’re watching this and you realize that you don’t have the right level of support, you realize that your care is in danger, if you’re at home on a ventilator, tracheostomy, BIPAP, CPAP, Home TPN, whatever the case maybe, IV fluids, and you realize that your care is in peril, reach out to us. We can help you increase the funding otherwise we wouldn’t be in business. Think about that.
We have always successfully advocated for our clients from Day 1 and like we’ve done now in this situation with our example today. Part of the funding being reinstated is also our level of advocacy. So, we have proven our model in no time. When we move in with intensive care nurses, clients don’t go back to hospital. They don’t. That’s part of our skill.
That’s also why we are 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’ll put a link to in the written version of this blog where I have done an interview with Amanda Riches, one of our NDIS Support Coordinators. We’re also providing TAC case management in Victoria and WorkSafe case management.
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 more nursing care for your participants and you don’t know how to go about it and what evidence to provide, I also encourage you to reach out to us. We can help you with the right advocacy. We also provide 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, we’re currently hiring for jobs for critical care nurses in the home in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, in Albury, Wodonga, and Bendigo, in Geelong, and in Warragul in Victoria. If you have worked in critical care for a minimum of two 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 want to have the same staff coming over and over again because they’re so vulnerable and so special. It’s all about building those critical relationships with our clients and with our other team members and having regular and stable team.
That means if you’re looking for agency work where you can come and go, this is probably not the right fit for you because we want regular staff, and our clients want regular staff. Everything that we do is driven by our clients.
If you’re an intensive care specialist or an ED specialist, we also want to hear from you. We are 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 regular readmitting patients with our critical care nursing team at home. We’re here to help you take the pressure off your ICU and ED beds. In most cases, you won’t even pay for it, but even if you do pay for it, it’s much more cost-effective than what you’re paying in 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 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.
Once again, our website is intensivecareathome.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or 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 the video with your friends and families and leave your comments below what you want to see next, what do you think about today’s topic, and what insights you have from this 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.