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My Dad is Depressed and Frustrated Being in ICU Long-Term! Can He Go Home with INTENSIVE CARE AT 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 tracheostomies. Otherwise, medically complex patients at home including Home TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition), Home BiPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure), Home CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure), also Home Tracheostomy care for adults and children that are not ventilated. Also, we provide IV potassium infusions, IV magnesium infusions at home, IV antibiotics. We also provide port management, central line management, PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line management, Hickman’s line management as well as palliative care services at home.

Now, in today’s blog, I want to answer a question from a reader. And Tracy says,

“Hi Patrik, 

My father is in intensive care, long-term. He’s on a ventilator with a tracheostomy. He has no quality of life and his brain is working. And he’s telling us he wants to get out of ICU and he wants to go home. Is this something that Intensive Care at Home can help with?”

And of course, this is exactly what we can help with, this is our core business to take patients home from intensive care that are stuck in intensive care long-term. That is exactly what we do.

Now, you haven’t shared more details why your dad is in ICU. How long he’s been there? But you’re saying, he’s been in ICU long-term. I would consider anything above 3, or 4 weeks in ICU long-term. And of course, your dad now that he’s probably more awake, probably getting more aware of his surroundings, he realizes, well, that’s not the best place to be in. ICUs have their time and their place, of course, for anything that is very acute to save lives. But now that he’s probably over that stage where he’s on a ventilator, tracheostomy can’t be weaned, can he be weaned off at home? Maybe he’s ventilator dependent for the rest of his life, you have not shared any more details, but this is right up our alley. How does it work?

Well, we’ll help you with getting your dad home by providing the equipment, providing the staffing, of course, having intensive care nurses at home 24-hours a day to basically replicate the ICU. But with much more quality of life at home, with having a stable team, having the same people that you choose coming to get there over and over again. That will help him to get better. It will prove it will improve his quality of life literally overnight and it will improve your quality of life and your family’s quality of life because you are probably, for lack of a better term, living in ICU, and you don’t want to continue that, I can fully understand.

It’s also a win-win situation on a much bigger picture level in terms of, we help the ICU to free up a bed that is in high demand. We help the ICU to free up staff, we help the ICU to free up equipment. we cut the cost of an intensive care bed by around 50% and for the same care at home. Again, it’s a win-win situation all around. And you might wonder who’s going to pay for it.

Look again, funding bodies who pay for an ICU bed, $5000 to $6000, per day. They will have an interest in paying 50% of that. Again, it makes perfect sense and it’s a win-win situation.

So, if you want to improve your dad’s quality of life and your quality of life, please give us a call on one of the numbers on the top of our website or send me another follow up email to [email protected].

Now, if you have a loved one in intensive care in a similar situation and needs Intensive Care at Home, please reach out to us. We can help you to take your loved one home. We provide critical care nurses at home 24-hours a day for patients that are on ventilation with tracheostomy, patients that are not ventilated but have a tracheostomy, adults and children that don’t have a tracheostomy but are on BiPAP, CPAP, Home TPN, IV potassium, IV magnesium, IV antibiotics, PICC line management, central line management, Hickman’s line management, port management and palliative care at home.

Now, we are currently operating all around Australia in all major capital cities as well as in regional and rural areas. We are an NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) approved service provider around Australia. We are a TAC (Transport Accident Commission) approved service provider in Victoria, an NIISQ (National Injury Insurance Scheme in Queensland) approved service provider in Queensland. ICare approved service provider in New South Wales, as well as a DVA (Department of Veteran Affairs) approved service provider all around Australia.

We have also received funding through public hospitals, Departments of Health as well as through private health funds. So reach out to us if you need help.

And if you’re in the U.S. or in the U.K. and you need help, we can help you there privately. Please reach out to us as well.

We are also providing Level 2 and Level 3 specialist support coordination, NDIS support coordination if you need help with that. We are also providing NDIS nursing assessments, if you need help with that.

And if you are at home already and you have insufficient support, you’re going back to hospital all the time, going back to ICU all the time. You don’t have reliable staff, you don’t have staff that are ICU trained, please reach out to us. Funding is not an issue. The NDIS in Australia is funding nursing care, just needs to go through the right advocacy process which we are the experts in. So please reach out to us.

Or if you’re an NDIS Support Coordinator, and you’re looking for nursing care for your participants or you don’t know how to advocate for nursing care, please reach out to us as well.

And if you are a critical care nurse and you’re looking for a career change, we want to hear from you as well. If you have worked for a minimum of two years in critical care, ICU or ED. And if you ideally have completed a postgraduate critical care qualification, we currently have jobs in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, in Albury, Wodonga, as well as in Bendigo in Country Victoria, as well as in Warragul, Country Victoria. We want to hear from you and we are looking for people that want to complement our team that are team players and that are looking for regular work. We are a service provider and not an agency. We pride ourselves on providing a tailor-made solution for our clients. So if you’re looking for agency work and you want to come and go, please don’t apply. Only apply if you want to make a difference to our client’s life. And if you want regular work, and if you want to make a difference to our client’s life, and that includes working with our clients on a regular basis.

Also, if you are an intensive care specialist, we are currently expanding our medical team. And if you’re an intensive care specialist and you have bed blocks in your ICU, which I know you do, then I encourage you to reach out to us as well. We can help you eliminate your bed blocks by taking your patients home, which also includes palliative care for some patients.

We are also currently providing an ED bypass service for the Western Sydney local area health district. We send our critical care nurses into the home to avoid emergency department admissions. So if your ED is bed blocked, we can help you eliminate those bed blocks by bypassing ED and by providing some ED services at home.

And if you are a hospital executive watching this, we also want to hear from you because again, we can help you eliminate your bed blocks in ICU and ED, please reach out if you need help.

Thank you so much for watching.

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 button, share the video with your friends and family, share it far and wide and comment below what you want to see next, what questions and insights you have from this video.

Thanks for watching.

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

Take care for now.