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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,
IS INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME LOOKING AFTER ADULTS AND CHILDREN AT HOME WITH TRACHEOSTOMIES?
You can check out last week’s blog by clicking on the link below this video:
Is the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) Neglecting and Killing Ventilated and Tracheostomy Clients in the Community? (Part 1)
Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com where we provide tailor-made solutions for long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomy, and where we also provide tailor-made solutions for medically complex clients at home, for clients at home TPN. But we also provide tailor-made solutions for hospitals and intensive care units.
Today, I want to talk about, “Is the NDIS trying to kill adults and children on invasive and non-invasive ventilation as well as children and adults on a tracheostomy?” And this is a very timely topic, and the NDIS, I’m sure doesn’t want to talk about it, and is trying to sweep it under the carpet what’s really happening on a bigger picture level.
So, Bill Shorten’s office at the NDIS, they’re trying to cut NDIS plans even though clients, NDIS participants, need 24-hour intensive care nursing. And that is evidence-based through, for example, what you will find on our website, the Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines. This is evidence-based by doctors’ letters, by OT letters, physiotherapy letters, and so forth. And the NDIS is trying to conveniently ignore it, trying to sweep it under the carpet, and is not giving their participants evidence-based intensive nursing care.
So, we have evidence that the NDIS does not give clients or participants actual evidence why funding is cut and they’re not giving NDIS participants evidence why all of a sudden, an intensive care nurse looking after a client with a tracheostomy invasive or a non-invasive ventilation, that an intensive care nurse can be replaced with what the NDIS calls a “high intensity support worker”.
So, when you look at intensive care in general, not even a general registered nurse can look after a tracheostomy unless they’ve worked in intensive care for a minimum of two years, or not even a general registered nurse can look after a patient on BIPAP, adult or child. And again, patients with BIPAP or mechanical ventilation, invasive or non-invasive, as well as tracheostomy, they’re, generally speaking, in ICU.
Now, in this day and age, people can live in the community with Intensive Care at Home, for example. Again, it’s evidence-based and intensive care beds can be freed up with our service. And the cost of an intensive care bed can be reduced by about 50%, and an intensive care bed is around five to $6,000 per bed day, and we can provide that service at home for approximately half of the cost. Plus, you have the added-on bonus of having a free intensive care bed. But what we are seeing at the moment is obviously the NDIS trying to cut corners, not looking at the evidence, and being very ruthless and quite literally, wanting to kill or potentially murder people to save money. It has to be spelled out because that is what’s happening in reality.
Some of our clients in the past that were on mechanical ventilation or had unstable airways with tracheostomy, the NDIS was only funding overnight care, was not funding daycare or day intensive care nurses. They were only funding overnight intensive care nurses. And those clients, just as we predicted at the time, were dying during the day because either families or support workers or even general registered nurses could not manage medical emergencies at home for clients with a tracheostomy or with mechanical ventilation. And that, in my mind, is a crime. And the NDIS is busy trying to sweep it under the carpet. In the meantime, the NDIS is busy trying to cut more NDIS plans for clients where it’s evidence-based that they need intensive care nurses, 24 hours a day, and it’s outrageous. It’s a disgrace. Again, I believe it’s a crime against humanity, and it needs to be spelled out what the NDIS is trying to do.
So, people of the NDIS, do you want more casualties? You know exactly the clients that I’m talking about. Do you want more casualties? Do you want more children to die? Is that what you want?
So, coming back to the funding cuts that we have seen, again, we have evidence for it. And the evidence is, in doctors’ letters, in our nursing assessments, and the evidence is, again, on our mechanical home ventilation guidelines that you can look up on our website that only a client, adult or child, at home with invasive or non-invasive ventilation, needs to be looked after, 24 hours a day, with an intensive care nurse, with a minimum of two years intensive care nursing experience and that’s exactly what we’re doing at Intensive Care at Home.
Also, what’s very important, we are bringing standards in the community. Standards that the NDIS conveniently is trying to diminish or even eradicate, in the name of cost, instead of looking what is clinically necessary. It’s extremely unethical. And in a hospital, for example, standards are there for a reason, and we are doing the same in the community. And the NDIS is trying to undermine it, again, trying to kill people and it’s an absolute disgrace. It’s replacing an intensive care nurse with a high intensity support worker is like replacing the pilot on an airplane with a cabin crew. That’s the best comparison that I’ve come up with.
Let me repeat this. So, if you are going on an airplane and you want to fly from London to Sydney, or from Sydney to Los Angeles, and you are sitting on the airplane and you’re getting ready, and all of a sudden, someone is telling you, “Oh, by the way, the pilot can’t fly, we will just put the stewardess and let the stewardess fly the airplane.” That’s very similar to when the NDIS is trying to cut funding for an intensive care nurse and is putting a high intensity support worker in charge. That’s like the blind leading the blind. And the chances that someone will die are very high, and we have the evidence for it. And again, the NDIS is busy trying to sweep it under the carpet, but we will not stop in advocating for our clients and what’s clinically relevant, and so that we can continue freeing up intensive care beds for more critically unwell people.
So, it’s a win-win situation that we’re trying to create or that we are creating on a day-by-day basis, whereas the NDIS is trying to cut funds and basically killing people and then get them off the NDIS and then cut the NDIS bill all together. It’s an absolute disgrace. It’s outrageous, and it needs to stop.
I believe we are here talking about medical negligence and there’s also departments of health that should step in. If the NDIS, for whatever reason, says, “Look, it’s not our job to fund nursing care”, then departments of health need to step in. Everyone is talking about getting people out of hospital. Well, walk the talk and don’t just make noise and then do nothing. There are enough services out there that can keep hospitals empty, but you actually need to use them, and you need to shift the money in the right direction. So, it can actually be a real win-win situation for everyone.
So, it also makes me wonder at the NDIS, when we see those NDIS plans, again, they’re not evidence based. It’s just often says things like, “We have decided to reduce the funding, or we have decided to not fund nursing care”, without any evidence, without any clinical explanation. And again, it’s highly unethical. Again, I do believe it’s a criminal act because it clearly has killed people and it might continue to kill people if the NDIS continues down that path on wanting to cut NDIS plans for literally intensive care patients, because we are taking patients home from intensive care, adults and children, and cut the cost of an intensive care bed. And the NDIS should have an interest in that and walk the talk. And the state and the federal government should work together to achieve that, because everybody’s winning if that can be achieved.
And back to the NDIS bureaucrats, show us the evidence why a high intensity support worker can do the work of an intensive care nurse, if not even a general registered nurse can do the work of an intensive care nurse without the training?
And people of the NDIS, let me ask you another question. If you were a patient in intensive care, you or one of your family members, God forbid, would you want a “high intensity support worker” to look after you instead of a highly qualified intensive care nurse? Please answer that question below this video. Leave your comments. I’m outraged by all of this, what I’m seeing at the moment within the NDIS.
And what we’re also finding is the people that are making decisions at the NDIS, when we ask them, “What are their qualifications and what makes them qualified to make decisions about patients on life support or what makes them qualified to make decisions about adults and children on ventilation, tracheostomy?”, we get silence. Why do we get silence when we ask that question, “What makes them qualified to make life or death decisions about intensive care patients?” Why is it that they’re silent? So, they’re not intensive care nurses? They’re not intensive care doctors? They’re not health professionals even? So, how do they make decision? Make it transparent. Bill Shorten and his office and the whole NDIS agency, make it transparent. Show us the evidence. There is no evidence for what you are claiming.
So, I hope that shed some light on what’s really happening at the moment within the NDIS, especially when it comes to long-term intensive care patients, patients on BIPAP, CPAP, tracheostomy, long-term ventilation, but also otherwise medically complex patients with unstable airways. The NDIS apparently is all about choice and control. The NDIS apparently is all about making sure that people are not disadvantaged. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. It goes as far as that NDIS participants are dying because the right level of funding is not being given even though there’s overwhelming evidence. So, I hope that helps.
If you have a loved one in intensive care, and you want to go home especially long-term ventilation tracheostomy, just as we discussed, you should contact us at intensivecareathome.com. Contact us on one of the numbers on the top of our website 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, and we answer all questions, intensive care and Intensive Care at Home related, 24 hours a day, and have a look there.
We also provide medical record reviews for our clients, and also do nursing assessments for our clients. You should contact us as well.
Subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families in intensive care and Intensive Care at Home, share the video with your friends and families, let everybody know what’s happening here in Australia with the NDIS. What a disgrace what’s happening there at the moment, and click the like button, click the notification bell, and comment below what you think about this video. What’s your opinion?
And if you are working at the NDIS, show us your evidence for the decisions that you’re making. Show us your qualifications about the decisions that you’re making, because it appears to be like there are no health professionals within the NDIS making decisions about clients, adults, and children with tracheostomies, invasive and noninvasive ventilation. Show us your qualifications. Leave your comments.
Thanks for watching.
This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com and I’ll talk to you in a few days.
Now, if you have a loved one in intensive care and you want to go home with our service intensive care at home and if you want to find out how to get funding for our service and how it all works, please contact us on one of the numbers on the top of our website, or send me an email to [email protected]. That’s Patrik, just with a K at the end.
Please also have a look at our case studies because there we highlight more about what we can do for clients, how clients can live at home with ventilation and tracheostomies and you can look at our case studies as well at our service section.
Intensive care at home Case studies
And if you are at home already and you need support for your critically ill loved one at home, and you have insufficient support or insufficient funding, please contact us as well. We can help you with all of that.
And if you are an intensive care nurse or a pediatric intensive care nurse with a minimum of two years, ICU or pediatric ICU experience, and you ideally have a critical care certificate, please contact us as well. Check out our career section on our website. We are currently hiring ICU and pediatric ICU nurses for clients in the Melbourne metropolitan area, Northern suburbs, Sunbury, Bendigo, Mornington Peninsula, Bittern, Patterson Lakes, Frankston area, South Gippsland, Drouin, Warragul, Trida, Trafalgar and Moe as well as Wollongong in New South Wales.
www.intensivecareathome.com/careers
So we are also an NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme), TAC (Victoria) and DVA (Department of Veteran affairs) approved community service provider in Australia. Also have a look at our range of full service provisions.
Thank you for watching this video and thank you for tuning into this week’s blog.
This is Patrik from Intensive Care at Home and I’ll see you again next week in another update.