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If you want to know if Intensive Care at Home can do IV saline infusions at home for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and gastroparesis, stay tuned. I’ve got news for you.

My name is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com and I have another question today from one of our readers and clients who says,

“Hi Patrik,

I was just wondering if Intensive Care at Home is doing IV saline infusions? I used to get them weekly from my local medical center due to multiple medical issues such as Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, gastroparesis, vascular compressions, etc., but now they can’t get any due to the shortage of saline.

If you do this, how much is it per infusion for 1 liter of fluids per week? I live in Northwest Sydney. Do you guys have staff in New South Wales and in Northwest Sydney?

Thank you.

– Caitlin.”

Well, thank you, Caitlin for reaching out. The answer to all of your questions is a yes. We do IV saline infusions at home for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, gastroparesis, and vascular compressions. As far as I’m aware, there is no shortage of saline, but I could be wrong. We know where to get the saline from but maybe there’s something brewing that I don’t know about.

So, how much is the cost? Well, first off, I do believe that with your conditions, you will get NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) funding for the nursing care as well as for the equipment, including the saline, because we’re having similar NDIS funded clients for similar situations and conditions. So, that’s the good news.

The cost is obviously as per NDIS price guide for registered nurses or clinical nurses. You can see that in the NDIS price guide, and then there’s equipment on top of that, plus the saline. I think a liter bag of saline at the moment would cost around $9 or $10 if my memory serves me correct. Then, there’s obviously an IV pump that we can hire out. There’s also obviously an infusion.

Giving said, now, I don’t know what you have for IV access, whether you’ve got a PICC line, a central line, Hickman’s line, a port-a-cath, or whether you get cannulated every single time you’re having the IV fluids. So, you haven’t shared that. Equipment costs depend a little bit on that as well.

Whilst you haven’t shared that, Caitlin, in your email, I wouldn’t be surprised if you also need TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition) at some point because of the gastroparesis, but I’m sure that is something that you have considered and you thought about. It sounds like you’re fairly well educated about your condition and what you need. It also looks like you’ve done your online research to find our website and understanding that this is a service we are providing.

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. Therefore, we are providing a genuine alternative to a long-term stay in intensive care for ventilation and 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 for home TPN but also for IV infusions. We’re also providing nasogastric tube and PEG (Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy) tube management at home, as well as 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 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 an emergency department. We’re actively making sure that there are empty beds in an emergency department for the patients that most need to be in the emergency department.

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 services costs around 50% of that and we’re freeing up the most sought-after bed in the hospital, which is the intensive care bed. Most importantly, we’re improving the quality of life for patients and their families. So therefore, it’s a win-win situation for all stakeholders.

With Intensive Care at Home, we are currently operating all around Australia in all major capital cities as well as in all regional and rural areas. We’re 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 high 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.

Now, if you’re stuck in an ICU bed or you have a family member is stuck in an ICU bed, especially if you’re ventilated with a tracheostomy or if you’re at home already and you’re watching this, and you realize that you want to go home from ICU, from a long-term stay in a hospital, and that don’t have the right level of support for you at home, I’ll give you a very tangible example today how we can turn your situation around for you.

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 clients at home on a ventilator with a tracheostomy, full stop. 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 emergencies or dying if they don’t have critical care nurses looking after them 24/7. This is evidence-based and is documented in the Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines that you can find on our website.

Think about it, in intensive care in a hospital, you wouldn’t have support workers to look after a critical care patient on a ventilator with a tracheostomy. So, why would anyone in their right mind would do that in a home care environment?

So eventually, this client and the ICU that he was in found out about us. We were proving our concept with this client very quickly because we have the solution. When we worked with the client, we sent 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, very fast.

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

This is also why we are providing Level 2 and Level 3 NDIS Support Coordination. We have a team of designated and dedicated 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, and high-performing team of critical care nurses in the community, we are employing hundreds of years of critical care nursing experience combined. If you are looking for a career change, we’re currently hiring for jobs for critical care nurses 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 (Emergency Department), and you have already completed the postgraduate critical care nursing qualification, we will be delighted hearing from you.

I have a disclaimer though, because we are offering a tailor-made solution for our clients, which includes regular staff and regular teams, 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 will not be the right fit for you. We are looking for consistency and our clients are looking for consistency. So, only apply with us if you can give us regular and consistent availabilities for shifts and only if you’re really keen on building relationships with us and with our clients, and if you think you are ready for a home care environment.

If you are 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 your ICU and in your EDs 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 and ED beds. In most cases, you won’t even pay for it. Even if you do pay for it, it is much more cost-effective than what you’re paying for in ICU and ED and you get the same level of care.

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 with one-on-one consulting and hiring private nurses.

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, comment below on what you want to see next and what you think about 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.