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My Dad’s Been in ICU for 10 Weeks Ventilated, Tracheostomy, Dialysis, He’s Depressed, Can He 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 at home and where we also provide tailor-made solutions for hospitals and intensive care units at home whilst providing quality care for long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomies at home. We’re also providing nursing care at home to otherwise medically complex adults and children at home including Home BIPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure), Home CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure), home tracheostomy care when adults and children are not ventilated, also Home TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition), home IV potassium infusions, home IV magnesium infusions, as well as home IV antibiotic infusions. We also provide port management, central line management, PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line management, Hickman’s line management, as well as palliative care at home, which also includes ventilation weaning.

We’re also providing our critical care nurses for home care to avoid emergency department readmissions or admissions which we’ve done successfully for the Western Sydney Local Area Health District for the in-touch program.

So today, I have another question from Katie who says,

“Hi Patrik,

My dad is currently in ICU. He’s on ventilation, tracheostomy and dialysis. He’s had about 12 units of blood since he was admitted. He also has an intravenous drip for hydration, and he’s being fed via nasogastric tube. It seems as though his kidneys and liver have failed. His medical condition before he went into hospital are Type 1 diabetes, hypertension, asthma, diabetic neuropathy, he’s got post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression.

He has been in ICU now for nearly 10 weeks and ICU are saying that they can’t keep him there indefinitely. I’m really scared. He’s a fighter and I promised him to never give up in a situation like that. Can he go home with Intensive Care at Home?

From, Katie.”

Well Katie, that’s not an unusual scenario that you are describing here. It’s a very sad scenario, and for sure, your dad is not in a great place in ICU. He doesn’t have any quality of life. ICU is already talking about, for lack of a better term, wanting to kick him out.

With Intensive Care at Home, that’s all possible and it would provide a win-win situation. So, what I mean by that is, your dad has no quality of life. He needs to leave this place because otherwise he’ll just get more and more depressed. You’re already saying he’s had a premedical history of depression and post-traumatic stress. A lot of patients coming out of ICU with post-traumatic stress. So, you don’t want to prolong the suffering for your dad in ICU and improve his quality of life by going home. It sounds to me like he can’t come off the ventilator but that it is also something that could be facilitated at home. Weaning off the ventilator can be facilitated at home.

Now, an ICU bed costs around $5,000 to $6,000 per bed day. With Intensive Care at Home, the cost can be cut by approximately 50%. The only thing that I will say here is your dad has a nasogastric tube, whilst we can look after nasogastric tubes at home, as much as I’m opposed to PEG tubes in hospitals, in this situation, your dad might benefit from a PEG tube at home whilst he hopefully can be weaned off the ventilator. If he can’t be weaned off the ventilator with the tracheostomy, then you will need to PEG (Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy) regardless.

Now, there are exceptions to the rules, sometimes PEG tubes can’t be done because of maybe some premedical conditions but most of the time, a PEG tube can be done, and I would strongly suggest in this situation to do a PEG tube.

Now, what we do next is get the funding for your dad and then we can organize and hire a nursing team, get all the equipment. Now, it all goes hand in hand, and we can do that as quickly as possible. You promised him you’ll never give up and we’re in the same boat. We never give up on our clients either because they deserve much better than being kept in an ICU forever in the day where they don’t have any quality of life, and ICU should help you getting your dad home and freeing up the ICU bed. I hope that answers your question, Katie.

Now with Intensive Care at Home, we are currently operating all around Australia. We are operating in all major capital cities as well as in regional and rural areas. We are an NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) approved service provider all around Australia. We are a TAC (Transport Accident Commission) approved and WorkSafe approved provider in Victoria, iCare in New South Wales, NIISQ (National Injury Insurance Scheme) in Queensland, as well as the Department of Veteran Affairs approved service provider all around Australia. We also have received funding through public hospitals, departments of health, as well as private health funds.

If you’re at home already in a similar situation or you’re stuck in ICU in a similar situation like Katie’s dad is, or your loved one doesn’t have the right support at home, we want to hear from you. Especially, when it comes to ventilation, tracheostomy, or no tracheostomy, but BIPAP or CPAP ventilation, Home TPN, et cetera, tracheostomy care without ventilation, and the list goes on. You realize you need this help, and you need intensive care nurses at home, please reach out to us. We have helped many, many families in those situations to obtain the funding with our advocacy and to get the critical care nurses at home.

We are also providing Level 2 and Level 3 NDIS Support Coordination. If you want to know more about our Level 2 and Level 3 NDIS support coordination, please reach out to us as well. We’ve also done an interview with Amanda Riches who is our NDIS Support Coordinator, and I will link towards that below the video.

If you’re an NDIS Support Coordinator, working for another organization and you’re looking for nursing care for your participants, please reach out to us as well. We’re also providing NDIS specialist nursing assessments and we’re also providing nursing assessments for any other funding body or organization if you need them, especially when it comes to very complex ventilated and tracheostomy clients in the community or in ICU and hospitals.

If you’re an NDIS Support Coordinator struggling with getting nursing care for your participant, please reach out to us as well. Once again, we have been successfully involved in the advocacy for our clients for nursing care at home from Day 1, and that’s also applicable if you’re a family member or a patient who can’t get nursing care through the NDIS, we can definitely help you.

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 in critical care for a minimum of two years and you ideally have completed a postgraduate critical care nursing qualification, we want to hear from you. We currently have jobs in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Albury, Wodonga, Bendigo in Country Victoria, as well as in Warragul in Country Victoria. We want to hear from you.

Please keep in mind we’re looking for critical care nurses that want to complement our team. We want to hire staff that give us regular availabilities because that is what our clients want. Our clients want regular staff, that’s why we can provide a tailor-made solution for our clients and their families. That’s we are exactly providing.

If you’re an intensive care specialist or ICU consultant, we are currently expanding our medical team as well. We want to hear from you, reach out to us here at intensivecareathome.com.

If you’re an intensive care specialist and you have bed blocks in your ICU, I encourage you to eliminate your bed blocks by using Intensive Care at Home. More importantly, we improve the quality of life and sometimes quality of end of life for your patients and their families and you don’t even pay for it.

If you’re a hospital executive watching this, we also want to hear from you because, once again, we can help you eliminate bed blocks in ICU, ED, respiratory wards, etc.

Our website once again is intensivecareathome.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or send us an email to [email protected]. If you’re in the U.S., or in the U.K., or in Canada, please reach out to us as well. We can help you there privately.

If you like my YouTube 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 what you want to see next, what questions and insights you have and share the video with your friends and families.

I also do a weekly YouTube live where I answer your questions live on the show. You will get notification for the YouTube live if you’re a subscriber to my YouTube channel or a subscriber to our email newsletter at intensivecareathome.com. Go there and subscribe now.

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.