Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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.
In last week’s blog, I talked about,
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 is in ICU on a Ventilator and May Qualify for NDIS. Can you Help me Take Him Home through Intensive Care at Home?
Hi Patrik,
My partner of 17 years is still in ICU. It has been 50 days yesterday. After checking into the emergency department, he ended up being intubated and on a ventilator. After a couple of weeks, he ended up with a tracheostomy and they still can’t wean him off the ventilator.
He’s got a severe pneumonia and he was in an induced coma for many weeks, and now he’s too weak to come off the ventilator. They also now noticed that he’s paralyzed on the left side, and they found a bleed about 4 X 4 mm at the basal in the CT scan of the brain.
For about five weeks now, they have tried to wean him off the ventilator. They have tried to wake him up and he simply can’t come off the ventilator and he’s not waking up.
I now learned that my partner might qualify for the NDIS. We are in Melbourne, Australia, and I heard about your service and we heard that he can qualify for the NDIS because he’s disabled and he’s now blind.
The NDIS seems to be willing if the doctor approves, meanwhile, the ICU is talking to me about end of life and he’s talking to me about that we should just stop the ventilator. My partner is only 54 years of age.
I’m unable to find anyone that wants to take him home. So I have come across your service and the NDIS even told me about your service. I have a beautiful bedroom with attached living room that is furnished and there would be enough space for my partner to live in there.
I’m trying to keep going on this, even though the ICU team is very negative, but I feel like taking him home and trying to look after him at home while he is on a ventilator. It is so much better than staying in ICU for another six weeks.
Can you help me?
From Elise.
Hi Elise,
Thank you so much for making contact. It sounds to me like we can help you. The NDIS funds nursing care for long-term ventilated clients with tracheostomy and it sounds to me like we can help your partner to get home.
If he had a stroke after the pneumonia, which sounds like has happened, he might need a little bit more time to wake up, but I guess that doesn’t necessarily help him to come off the ventilator. And if he can’t come off the ventilator and the trache, it’s definitely the best option to take him home.
And like you correctly pointed out, the NDIS now is funding 24-hour nursing care for ventilated patients with a tracheostomy and given that your partner is 54, he will qualify for that. It needs more than just a doctor’s letter. It needs an assessment from the NDIS. It also needs a nursing assessment.
So it needs a few assessments, obviously, because it’s not a straightforward process. However, most of our clients are now funded by the NDIS. So the process is definitely there. You just need to get it started and we can help you with the process.
Weaning off the ventilator at home is possible. I’m unsure of why they haven’t been able to wean your partner off the ventilator in ICU yet. But that’s something we can find out when we talk to the doctors there in any case. The next step really is to contact us again and then we can help you with the next steps to get the funding through the NDIS and take your partner home.
Take care for now.
From Patrik.
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.