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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,
VENTILATION, TRACHEOSTOMY, IV FLUIDS, TPN, CENTRAL LINES, DIALYSIS. CAN IT BE DONE AT HOME? LIVE!
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 Husband had a Liver Transplant on a Ventilator with Tracheostomy. Can He Be Weaned Off the Ventilator at Home?
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 hospitals and intensive care units, whilst providing quality care, and managing and saving resources, including the cost of an ICU bed by approximately 50%. We also provide home TPN for clients as well as otherwise, medically complex patients at home, instead of in intensive care.
In today’s video, I want to quickly talk about a question we have from a reader, Claire. And Claire writes, “My husband is 49 years of age, and he had a liver transplant in mid-March 2022. He’s currently still in ICU. And now we are in, at the end of July, 2022. He has a tracheostomy and he’s been on the ventilator since early April. Unfortunately, after multiple failed attempts of coming off the ventilator and the tracheostomy, his anxiety and fear of not being able to breathe, inhibits any progress. His level of care, I believe became questionable when he started retaining fluids in the lungs. And he’s still in ICU after all this time. We are very frustrated because my husband has no quality of life in ICU and we want to go home if we can. Can he be weaned off the ventilator at home? Why do you think he might have fluids on the lungs? And your insights would be much appreciated.”
So look, here’s my take. If he can’t be weaned off the ventilator, I’m not overly surprised. There is no quality of life in ICU. And after now three, four months in ICU, I think it’s time for your husband to get back to some form of normality, which can be achieved at home. And there’s often a huge psychological component when people can’t be weaned off the ventilator.
It sounds like he’s tolerating the liver transplant well, and I’m sure they’re medicating him well to manage that. But the main challenge at the moment seems to be that he’s not coming off the ventilator.
Now, if he’s fluid overloaded on the lungs, one reason for that might simply be that they’re giving him too many fluids and that he’s not making enough urine. Maybe he needs to be started on a diuretic such as Lasix or furosemide. Maybe he needs some intermittent dialysis just to even out his fluid balance so that he’s not fluid overloaded. Maybe he needs to go on a fluid restriction for a little while.
But in terms of your husband going home, it sounds to me like that is the best option with Intensive Care at Home, of course, to continue weaning him at home. Of course, there are other things that you haven’t mentioned here, for example, is he on high levels of oxygen? But I would think, you would’ve mentioned that if that had been the case and he needs a team at home that can carry on with his progress at home and get him out of ICU.
Another risk in this situation is simply that, especially for liver transplants, he might be immunocompromised now and you don’t want him in a hospital with several other sick people around where he’s likely to catch an infection. And you certainly don’t want that after a liver transplant. Whereas at home he’s in a much cleaner environment and the risk of infection is so much lower.
So, we can set up home care for him at intensivecareathome.com and provide you with 24-hour intensive care nursing that can be overseen by a doctor and then continue weaning at home.
So, I hope that helps.
You should reach out to us on one of the numbers on the top of our website. At your husband’s young age, he should also qualify for some funding, especially if you are, in Australia, but even in other countries with the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme), you should absolutely contact us on one of the numbers on top of our website at intensivecareathome.com or simply send us an email to [email protected].
That’s my quick tip for today.
Also check out our membership for families in intensive care at intensivecaresupport.org.
We also provide medical records reviews for families and patients in intensive care. That’s part of our service too.
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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, 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.