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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.

In last week’s blog, I talked about,

MY BROTHER IS IN ICU WITH A TRACHEOSTOMY & CAN’T COME OFF THE VENTILATOR. CAN YOU HELP ME BRING HIM HOME?

You can check out last week’s blog by clicking on the link below this video:

https://intensivecareathome.com/my-brother-is-in-icu-with-a-tracheostomy-cant-come-off-the-ventilator-can-you-help-me-bring-him-home/

In today’s blog post, I want to answer a question from one of our clients and the question today is

My 52-year old Brother is Stuck in the ICU & the Hospital Does Not Want to Help Anymore with Weaning Him Off the Ventilator. Can You Help Us in Taking Him Home?

Hi Patrik,

My brother is 52 years of age, the only medical problem he had was chronic heart failure and mild COPD. Five months ago, he had sepsis and the ICU doctors didn’t want to treat him. There was a delay in providing proper care and that cause him to have a respiratory infection and a crash and he ended up on a ventilator eventually with the tracheostomy.

Now he’s on the ventilator with the tracheostomy in a spontaneous breathing mode, but he can’t be weaned off the ventilator at all. He might have a few minutes off the ventilator, but he’s really struggling to keep it off for longer periods of time.

Therefore, he’s stuck in ICU at the moment and the hospital doesn’t want to help him anymore with weaning him off the ventilator and they want to stop treatment. Given that he’s only 52, we want to take him home. Instead, our goal is to remove the tracheostomy and getting him off the ventilator. Can you help us in taking him home?

Thank you so much.

From Marin.

 

Hi Marin,

Well, Marin, this is quite a common problem that we see across the board. Unfortunately, ICUs don’t want to continue treating. They need the ICU bed, but rather than looking at taking patients home with Intensive Care at Home, they want to stop treating. And unfortunately that’s the first step to end of life. And that’s where we can help you to take your brother home and continue treatment there.

Now, I wouldn’t know, at this particular point in time, whether he’s able to come off the ventilator or not, you haven’t shared enough information, but you know, in any case, if he’s been in ICU for five months now, it’s time for him to go home. He is probably depressed. He’s probably in a COVID infested intensive care unit. He’s depressed. He’s got no quality of life and it’s time for him to go home and set it up properly at home.

So the next step really is to give me a call and we can look into your situation. You are saying that you are in Sydney, Australia. You would be aware that at the age of 52, your brother would qualify for the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme). And I think we should have a chat about the funding about Specialist Support Coordination, which we can help you with. I should say Specialist NDIS Support Coordination, where we can help you with. And then set up the funding, set up the team, set up equipment, talk to the ICU, making sure you get the right support at home for your brother, improving his quality of life. Making sure he’s out of an ICU where the ICU is full of COVID. And at home, there is no COVID, it’s a much safer environment, less infection risk, more quality of life. And you as a family, don’t have to go into ICU all the time. And again, you’ll be much safer off with not having COVID.

So I hope that helps. Let me know if there’s anything else you need, but I think the next step is for us to talk to you, talk to the ICU and take the next steps from there.

Thank you so much.

 

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, Mornington Peninsula, Frankston area, South Gippsland, as well as Wollongong in New South Wales.

www.intensivecareathome.com/careers

So we are also an NDIS, 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.

Also, we have been part of the Royal Melbourne health accelerator program in the past for innovative healthcare companies.

https://www.thermh.org.au/news/innovation-funding-announced-melbourne-health-accelerator

https://www.melbournehealthaccelerator.com/

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.