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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 whilst providing quality care and where we also provide tailor made solutions for hospitals and Intensive Care Units to save money and resources where we provide win-win situations for all of our stakeholders and clients.
So in last week’s blog, I shared a testimonial from one of our staff members, where Tara, one of our critical care nurses in intensive care at home says:
You can check out last week’s blog by clicking on the link below this video:
In today’s blog. I want to answer a question from one of our readers and the question today is
My Husband has been in Intensive Care in Sydney for Six Weeks. He’s got a Tracheostomy and is Ventilated. Can He Go Home?
So I want to read out Katie’s question and Katie writes,
Hi Patrik,
I am gathering information for my 60-year old husband who has been in intensive care for six weeks now with a negative cycle that continues and doctors and nurses who are very nice, are unable to get to the bottom of things or get the right dosages of medications to keep him calm and also get him off the ventilator.
He is currently in ICU in Sydney. He initially was admitted with pneumonia. He’s got a history of COPD and he’s now got a cycle going on with low blood pressure and poor kidney perfusion. He’s not only on the ventilator with a tracheostomy, he’s also on kidney dialysis. It’s complicated by atrial fibrillation and by a high heart rate.
We are looking to bring him home as soon as possible, but we need a knowledgeable nursing team to help us getting him home and we also need funding to get him home. We are in Sydney and new South Wales, Australia. Are there services available near us?
Thank you.
From Katie
Hi Katie,
Thank you so much for sending your question in. To answer your question, in short, yes, we are in Sydney and we can help you in Sydney setting up a knowledgeable nursing team, intensive care nursing team to get your husband home on a ventilator with a tracheostomy.
I guess what needs to happen next from what you’re sharing is they need to get the atrial fibrillation under control. I don’t know whether he’s getting any Amiodarone, whether he’s getting any digoxin, especially since its fast AF from what you are sharing or have they tried a cardioversion to get him back into a sinus rhythm.
Other than that, it sounds like with the low blood pressure, your husband might be on inotropes or vasopressors, and before he can come home, ideally he should be off the inotropes and vasopressors. It would make things easier to get him home if he was more stable.
It would probably also help if he came off the kidney dialysis because often what happens when patients are on dialysis in intensive care, their blood pressure goes down and patients end up on inotropes and vasopressors.
The combination of atrial fibrillation and the kidney dialysis is often a recipe for getting patients on inotropes and vasopressors. So it would be critical for your husband to get the atrial fibrillation under control and then, he might have a higher chance getting off the inotropes and vasopressors, sustain a physiological blood pressure and perfuse his kidneys and get off the dialysis.
Then it would be so much easier to get him home if he was “only ventilated with a tracheostomy”, that in and of itself is a big enough challenge. But then again, with our team and with our expertise, we can get your husband home.
And also with the funding, you should definitely contact the NDIS, the national disability insurance scheme. They fund now home care for nursing and I can’t see why your husband wouldn’t qualify for it, with what you have shared.
So I hope that answers your question. You should just contact us on one of the numbers, on the Australian number on the top of our website, or simply send me an email to [email protected].
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.