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How to Access Intensive Care at Home for Ventilation and Tracheostomy in Perth, Western Australia

If you want to know what the best treatment options are if you have a loved one in intensive care with ventilation and tracheostomy or you’re at home already with ventilation and tracheostomy in Perth in western Australia, stay tuned. This video is for you.

Hi, my name is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com, where we provide tailor-made solutions for long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomies and where we also provide tailor-made solutions for hospitals and intensive care units. We’re also providing Intensive Care at Home nursing for medically complex adults and children at home, which includes tracheostomy care for adults and children that are not ventilated, BIPAP (bilevel positive airway pressure) and CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) ventilation without tracheostomy, also Home TPN (total parenteral nutrition) which is intravenous nutrition, home IV potassium infusion, home IV magnesium infusions, home IV antibiotics, and we also provide palliative care at home. We also do port management, PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line management, central line management, and Hickman’s line management at home.

We have also sent our critical care nurses into the home to provide an emergency department bypass service and avoid emergency department admissions by keeping our clients at home predictably.

Now, last year, there was a tender in Western Australia about how to look after long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomy in the community in Perth in Western Australia, and it was specifically designed or targeted towards long-term ventilated adults and children after quadriplegia or C1 or C2 spinal injuries.

Now, we put our tender forward, and we provide evidence-based nursing services, Intensive Care at Home. You can look that up that it’s evidence based on our website at intensivecareathome.com and there’s a section called the Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines that clearly demand that only critical care nurses with a minimum of two years critical care experience can look after long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomy at home, 24 hours a day, it needs to be. It needs to replicate intensive care of bed 24 hours a day.

Now, when we put our proposal forward, it was rejected, and we were told that other providers can provide these services with support workers.

Now, from my experience, after having worked in intensive care for nearly 25 years in three different countries where I worked with Intensive Care at Home in Germany in the early 2000s and where I also worked with Intensive Care at Home here in Australia since 2012. It is clear that whenever support workers look after basically intensive care patients in the community, that’s like a death sentence. So, that makes me believe that the public health systems don’t really care about their patients, and they just want them to die as quickly as possible.

Now, funny enough, about 6 months after the tender was released, and some companies were appointed that are not really accredited, because that’s another thing. We are the only service in 2024 in Australia that is actually third-party, and NDIS accredited, and TAC accredited against Intensive Care at Home nursing. No other service in Australia has achieved that level of accreditation.

About 6 months later, we get a phone call from a family in Perth in Western Australia, saying, “Hey, my mom is in intensive care. She’s been looked after at home by support workers. She’s a quadriplegic client. She’s ventilated and has a tracheostomy. Support workers cannot keep her home predictably, and she’s bouncing in and out of ICU all the time. Can you provide this service?”

And I said yes, of course. I mean, our clients are at home predictably. Our clients don’t go to hospital because we are bringing the intensive care into the home which makes sense for someone on a ventilator with a tracheostomy.

So that means, rather than looking for a cheap option when it comes to intensive care patients, you can’t be flying the airplane with the cabin crew instead of the pilot because that’s what it is at the end of the day if you’re sending support workers in someone’s home for patients that otherwise would be in intensive care. You can’t even send a general registered nurse without intensive care experience because it’s the same for them. They don’t have the skill, the knowledge, or the know-how, how to keep someone out of intensive care and keep them alive predictably.

So, what you should be doing if you’re in a similar situation, either in Perth in Western Australia, or if you are in in a different state in Australia, or in another country even, what should you be doing? Well, it all comes down to the advocacy. If your loved one goes back to intensive care all the time, doesn’t have staff because they realize there’s a high turnover for support workers, there’s a high turnover for general registered nurses who can’t do the work because they’re simply not skilled. Well, it’s all about the advocacy.

We wouldn’t be in business if a cheap model of care would be successful because it’s not. Patients have died in the community because they had support workers or general registered nurses looking after them.

If you doubt my word, please contact us here at intensivecareathome.com. I’m happy to share evidence with you that patients have died in the community because they didn’t get the right level of care. It was one of the reasons why people eventually started listening to us when we first got our first clients over 10 years ago because they realized a different model of care is actually needed. It is the only way to be safe in the community when it comes to ventilation and tracheostomy.

It doesn’t really matter which funding body you are talking about. If you’re an Australian in particular, whether it’s either NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme), whether it’s the TAC (Transport Accident Commission) in Victoria, whether it’s NIISQ (National Injury Insurance Scheme in Queensland), iCare in New South Wales, the DVA (Department of Veteran Affairs), whether it’s public hospitals, private hospitals, private health insurance, departments of health, it all comes down to the advocacy. I’m about to say that we have 100% success rate in our advocacy because we just know this space inside out.

When it comes to the evidence, why don’t have support worker agency have evidence that their model of care works? I’ve never seen any evidence on a support worker agency’s website with any research, medical research, nursing research. I just haven’t seen it yet. It just provides services and they’re flying blind, and people have died because of it.

It’s also clear, after many years of having worked in this space, whenever there are support workers, with all respect, there’s such a high staff turnover. There’s no consistency. People are coming and going with registered nurses. They are on a career path. They are real professionals. They are registered. They report to a professional body, it’s much more regulated and people are accountable, which works in your favor or in your family member’s favor.

So, with Intensive Care at Home, like I said, we are currently operating all around Australia in all major capital cities as well as in regional and all rural areas. We are an NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) approved service provider, TAC (Transport Accident Commission) and Worksafe in Victoria, iCare in New South Wales, NIISQ (National Injury Insurance Scheme in Queensland), DVA (Department of Veteran Affairs) all around the country. We have also received funding through public hospitals, private hospitals, departments of health and private health insurance.

Now, we also provide Level 2 and Level 3 NDIS Support Coordination, which is often needed because our clients are so medically complex. So, if you need Level 2 or Level 3 NDIS support coordination, please reach out to us as well at intensivecareathome.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or send us an email to [email protected].

Also, if you are an NDIS Support Coordinator or you are a case manager and you’re dealing with medically complex clients, I also encourage you to reach out to us, especially if you still need help with advocacy. If you think your client isn’t getting the funding, their need isn’t getting the care they need or if you’re unsure what level of care they need. We also provide NDIS specialist nursing assessment.

Once again, you get all of that at intensivecareathome.com.  Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website. We’ll send an email to [email protected].

Also, if you are a critical care nurse and you’re looking for a career change, we want to hear from you. If you have a minimum of two years critical care nursing experience and you want to join our team of vibrant, critical care nurses in the community we want to hear from you. Now, we have a variety of jobs available in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Albury, Wodonga, Bendigo in Victoria, Warragul in Victoria as well.

Now, please keep in mind we are a service provider with a tailor-made solution for our clients and we are not a nursing agency. So, that means we’re looking for staff who want regular work. We’re looking for staff who want to build relationships with our clients, that want to work with our clients on a regular basis who want to work with us on a regular basis, because that is what our clients want. That is what we want. So, come and join us. We are fully accredited third-party of Intensive Care at Home nursing service. You won’t get that anywhere else.

If you are an intensive care specialist and you are interested in joining us, we are currently also expanding our medical team. Please reach out to us.

If you are an intensive care specialist or ICU consultant, and you are having bed blocks in your ICU and you need to empty your ICU beds for long-term ventilation, tracheostomy, Home TPN. We can help you with that, eliminate your bed block and you won’t even pay for it with most funding bodies, and that also includes palliative care in improving quality of end-of-life for patients and their families.

If you’re a hospital executive watching this and you have bed blocks in your hospital, in your ICU, once again, we can help you please reach out to us at 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, comment below what you want to see next, what questions and insights you have.

I also do a weekly YouTube live where I answer your questions live on a show. You get notification if you are a subscriber to my YouTube channel or if you are a subscriber to our email newsletter at intensivecareathome.com.

Thanks for watching.

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

Take care for now.