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Hi, it’s 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 whilst providing quality services for long-term, ventilated adults and children with tracheostomy and medically complex patients at home including Home TPN (total parenteral nutrition), BIPAP (bilevel positive airway pressure), and CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure). We also do IV potassium or magnesium infusions, IV antibiotics at home.
In last week’s blog, I talked about,
HOW NDIS SUPPORT COORDINATORS CAN HELP THEIR PARTICIPANTS WITH VENTILATION AND/OR TRACHEOSTOMY!
You can check out last week’s blog by clicking on the link below this video:
In today’s blog post, I want to answer a question from one of our clients and the question today is
My Dad has MND (Motor Neurone Disease) in ICU, He’s Ventilated, Can He have a Tracheostomy & Go Home?
Hi, it’s 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 whilst providing quality services for long-term, ventilated adults and children with tracheostomy and medically complex patients at home including Home TPN (total parenteral nutrition), BIPAP (bilevel positive airway pressure), and CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure). We also do IV potassium or magnesium infusions, IV antibiotics at home.
So, in today’s blog post, I do want to answer a question from one of our readers who says, “Hi, Patrik. My dad is 60 years old and has been in ICU for 8 days. He has been diagnosed with motor neurone disease about 10 months ago. He developed sepsis and was hospitalized for the second time in four months.
He has a PEG (Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy) tube, but his large intestine wasn’t getting enough oxygen, and he had an internal ischemia, part of his large intestine was removed. They did a colostomy procedure on him. He was in a medically induced coma for 4 days during these procedures.
They did a CAT scan of the abdomen to discover why there was not enough oxygen to the gut because of the MND or Motor Neurone Disease, he can’t talk, walk, or swallow. His breathing and oxygen were not at the safest numbers. So, he was intubated, put on a ventilator again yesterday. Currently, he is on 55 to 60% of oxygen.
The GI doctor wants to strongly recommend taking him off life support. It’s only been 8 days so far. He’s on intubation with no sedation. The nurse says he’s weak but still tolerating the intubation with chest pain medications and he’s drowsy and opens his eyes.
My question is, can he go home and have a tracheostomy or the other way around? Can he have a tracheostomy and go home if he can’t be weaned off the ventilator?”
Well, that’s a great question to ask, Salvy. So, here’s the answer, yes, your dad can go home with the tracheostomy and a ventilator with MND. So, let me talk more about this.
So, with Intensive Care at Home, we have been looking, at least, after two clients at home with motor neurone disease that are having a tracheostomy and are ventilated. It is their choice. It’s not the GI doctor’s choice to tell you, “You should be removing life support here.” It is your dad’s choice.
But the question is, have you had a conversation with your dad what he wants? Has your dad made any plans? Has he made an advanced care plan? What he wants? Is it documented? But even if it’s not documented, as long as you and your dad or any other family members had a conversation with him, and he expressed what his wishes are, then you should just tell the intensive care team if he can’t be weaned off the ventilator, which he may not be, because the motor neurone disease is a progressive disease and it’s unlikely that he will come off the ventilator, you never know. But from my experience, it’ll be difficult.
The way forward here would be a tracheostomy and then preparing him for home care. It’s all doable. We have looked after many patients at home with motor neurone disease and tracheostomy and it’s also happening in Europe on a much larger scale.
So, just because of what you’re going through here, shouldn’t deter you, assuming that’s what you and your dad want, and then going home. I know from your email, you are in Australia.
With Intensive Care at Home, we are currently operating all around Australia and most of our clients are funded through the NDIS, the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The next step here really is your dad needs to get an NDIS plan after he’s had the tracheostomy. Your dad needs to get an NDIS Specialist Support Coordinator which you can get through us as well. We provide NDIS Specialist Support Coordination as well.
Then, the advocacy needs to be started for your dad to go home with critical care nurses, 24 hours a day, which is what our other MND clients get to keep them safe. You can’t take patients home from intensive care without intensive care nurses, assuming they have ongoing intensive care needs, which is what a ventilator and a tracheostomy is. So, it’s a straightforward process but it just needs to get started. So, I hope that answers your question.
Also, if you are an NDIS Support Coordinator watching this, you may know of other clients or other NDIS participants that are in a similar situation. If you’re unsure about which services to use, what funding options are there through the NDIS or through other funding bodies, I strongly encourage you to reach out to us because we can help you, especially with the funding as well.
We’ve successfully advocated for many other clients and similar situations If you have a loved one in intensive care in a similar situation, or if you are watching this yourself, you’re stuck in ICU ventilation and tracheostomy, but even if you are not ventilated and you have a tracheostomy, you can’t go home without 24-hour critical care nursing support. Even if you are not having a tracheostomy, but you are BIPAP or CPAP dependent, the same applies. You can’t be going home without 24-hour ICU nurses because that’s what you’re having in hospital. So, please contact us.
You might also be at home watching this either, you might be a family at home watching this or you might be a patient watching this and you’re at home with ventilation, tracheostomy or BIPAP ventilation, CPAP ventilation, or you might be having a tracheostomy, but you’re not ventilated, and you don’t have enough support. You realize that whatever you’re having at the moment is not working, but you’re worried about lack of funding, once again, please reach out to us, we can help you with funding or perceived lack of funding. It’s just a perception that we can help you changing because we are very experienced in the advocacy work for our clients and their families.
Now, if you are an NDIS Support Coordinator are watching this, once again, I encourage you to reach out to us if you have a participant that needs nursing care. We are here for you and for your clients and for your participants and for your families. We can help you with up to 24-hour nursing care at home especially when it comes to ventilation, tracheostomy BIPAP, CPAP, but also, Home TPN, home electrolyte infusions such as potassium or magnesium, central line care at home, PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line care, Hickman’s line care, we do it all. Please contact us.
If you are an Intensive Care Specialist, please contact us as well. I know you’ve got bed blocks in ICU, exit blocks. We want to help you managing your exit blocks by sending critical care nurses into the home.
Furthermore, if you are a Critical Care Nurse, we want to hear from you as well. We currently have jobs in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. If you’re looking for a career change, we want to hear from you. But also, if you know of patients and families in ICU that need our help, please reach out to us.
Same for doctors, we are also expanding our medical team at the moment. Please reach out to us as well.
If you’re a Hospital Executive watching this, you’ve got exit blocks or bed blocks in ICU or in other high acuity areas of your hospital, once again, we can help you managing those exit blocks and we can help you show your patients that you partner with consumers as well.
We’re also providing an ED bypass service for the Sydney Western Area Health District. We’re sending our critical care nurses into people’s homes to keep them out of ED. So once again, we’re helping hospitals to manage their exit blocks and their bed blocks.
Now, I hope that helps and answers your questions.
We’re also providing NDIS nursing- assessments if you need any.
Now, you know where to contact us, contact us on one of the numbers on the top of our website at intensivecareathome.com or send us an email to [email protected].
If you like my videos, subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families in intensive care and Intensive Care at Home, click the like button, click the notification bell, share the video with your friends and families, and comment below what you want to see next or what questions and 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.
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, 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.