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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.

In last week’s blog, I talked about,

10 BENEFITS OF INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME SERVICES- LIVE STREAM!

You can check out last week’s blog by clicking on the link below this video:

https://intensivecareathome.com/10-benefits-of-intensive-care-at-home-services-live-stream/

In today’s blog post, I want to answer a question from one of our clients and the question today is

My Mother Has Been in Intensive Care for Eight Weeks, on a Ventilator with a Tracheostomy, Can She Go Home?

Hello everyone! My name is Patrik Hutzel from Intensive Care At Home and Intensive Care Hotline. I want to welcome you to another livestream today. Today’s livestream is about, “My Mother Has Been in Intensive Care for Eight Weeks, on a Ventilator with a Tracheostomy, Can She Go Home?”

Well, this is a question we get all the time, and I would be able to replace my mother to my father, my spouse, my brother, my sister, my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law. I could replace that with any other family relation, really. I could replace it with my son, my daughter. And it’s quite a common scenario we are seeing across the board, and we have been seeing for many years now, been seeing it for over 20 years now. And, if that is a question that you have in your mind, I can tell you that there is a solution for that, and that’s what I want to talk about today.

I want to welcome you to the livestream, and I want to welcome you to this video, and I want to thank you for joining the livestream and for putting your questions forward so we can do those livestream and elaborate on your questions. Just very quickly, type your questions in the chat pad, as we go along. I want to keep it to about half an hour, because I am conscious of your time. Especially if you have a loved one in intensive care, you probably have better things to do. But you can also watch this when it goes as an upload on YouTube, once we’re done here with the livestream.

Very briefly, what makes me qualified to talk about this topic today? I am a critical care nurse, intensive care nurse, with over 20 years in international experience. I have worked in three different countries, and I have worked for over five years as a nurse unit manager in intensive care. And, I also have many years and almost another decade of experience with intensive care at home. And, I set up my own service, Intensive Care At Home, where we are providing this very service for patients to go home from intensive care, to a home care environment with intensive care nurses 24 hours a day.

The service that we’re currently running is predominantly in Australia, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane on the East Coast, but we’re also going into country Victoria, country New South Wales, Adelaide, Perth, all over the country, really. And, we’re having so many inquiries also from the United States. Now, Intensive Care at Home Services have been around for over 20 years now. They originally started out in Germany, in the late 1990s, and I was part of it. Then in Germany, I was pioneering the service then with a group of people. I can’t take credit for the original idea, but I was working with an amazing group of people, where we rolled it out in Germany. And now, I’ve been rolling it out with my team, of course, here in Australia.

And also, as part of that, I’ve got decades of experience with all of that, and as part of that, I also run an organization, intensivecarehotline.com, where we consult and advocate for families in intensive care, all around the world, and deal with issues such as the one we want to discuss today, “My Mom’s Been in ICU for Eight Weeks, on a Ventilator with a Tracheostomy, Can She Go Home?” And again, I could replace my mom with my dad, my brother, my sister, my spouse, my son, my daughter. It comes in all sorts of varying degrees. But, the common issue is, what they all have in common is, they’re stuck on a ventilator, in intensive care for, let’s just say, six weeks, eight weeks, 10 weeks, three months, time goes on. I’ve seen patients in the ICU for over 18 months, because they’re ventilator-dependent with a tracheostomy and they can’t go anywhere, because the only way to take those patients home is on a ventilator with the tracheostomy, with intensive care nurses 24 hours a day. Anything less than that simply puts their lives at risk.

So let’s look at how you could end up in a situation like that, so you understand the pathway, the trajectory. And also, when is it time for you to look at services like Intensive Care At Home? If someone goes in intensive care, you’re certainly not looking at a service like Intensive Care At Home day one. Your goal, if you have a loved one in intensive care, should always be to get out as quickly as possible. If your loved one is on a ventilator, whether it’s BiPAP, CPAP with a mask, or whether it’s with a breathing tube, the goal is to have that ventilator removed as quickly as possible, so your loved one can progress out of intensive care, onto a hospital ward, onto a hospital floor, and get on with their lives. That should always be the ultimate goal.

Now, reality is, some patients in intensive care can’t come off the ventilator and the breathing tube or the endotracheal tube, and then they end up with a tracheostomy. Now, once again, this should only be temporarily. A tracheostomy should be a vehicle, a piece of equipment, that should help your loved one to get off the ventilator, have the tracheostomy removed, and then leave intensive care, go onto a hospital ward, maybe go into rehab and go home. That should be the ultimate goal. However, there are some critical illnesses that inevitably lead to long-term ventilation and long-term tracheostomy, and there might be an inability to wean off, or there might be a situation where weaning can take weeks, months, and then you should definitely look at home care.

Other things you need to consider is, someone, ideally, should be off inotropes or vasopressors or vasodilators, intravenous vasopressors, intravenous inotropes, intravenous vasodilators, before they can go home. It might be a little bit too risky to do that, so patients should be as stable as possible, before they embark on a journey home. Other situations where you might look at Intensive Care at Home is, if your loved one is continuously BiPAP or CPAP dependent, without a tracheostomy, without a breathing tube. If they need BiPAP or CPAP just with a mask, then they can’t come off it. So that’s another situation where you want to consider Intensive Care at Home services.

Other situations where you might want to consider intensive care at home services is if your loved one has regular seizures. We’re doing a lot of seizure management at home. Seizures, especially grand mal seizures or tonic-clonic seizures, lead inevitably to an unstable airway. And who manages an unstable airway? An unstable airway’s, generally speaking, managed by an intensive care nurse, as long as people don’t need intubation. So also, how are seizures managed? Seizures are managed, again, with doctors and nurses with, often medications, not the only way to manage a seizure, but it’s one of the ways. And especially, when it comes to, again, grand mal and tonic-clonic seizures, you want to use those nursing skills to use benzodiazepines and other medications, but predominantly, unstable airway management.

So, again, the original question was, my mom’s been in ICU for eight weeks, on a ventilator with a tracheostomy, can she go home? And I probably could have also said, “She’s been in ICU for 10 weeks, two months, three months, six months.” The reality is that, not everybody knows about Intensive Care at Home straight away, when they have a loved one in intensive care long-term. Sometimes, it takes time to do their research. ICUs want to stay in control. They’re not necessarily telling you about Intensive Care at Home. For them, it’s easier to say, “Oh, let’s just stop life support. Let’s just stop ventilation, and let your loved one die, because it’s ‘in their best interest”, which nothing could be further from the truth. Who doesn’t want to leave, even if they are on a ventilator with a tracheostomy, especially if they can go home?

So, you could contact us at eight weeks. You could contact us even at six weeks. You could contact us even earlier and we can advise what is the next best course of action. The reality also is that, if your loved one needs Intensive Care at Home, we won’t be able to set it up just overnight. We need a little bit of preparation time. We need to make sure you’ve got the finances or the finances are in place, and I’ll talk about the finances as we go along today, so you have an understanding how a service like Intensive Care At Home can be financed, without you being out of pocket. And I can tell you, none of our clients are out of pocket, so that is really important for you to know. And I will dive into the financing and funding side of things for Intensive Care at Home services, as we go along.

So, as I mentioned, the inability to be weaned off a ventilator is often the trigger point where someone needs or can have Intensive Care at Home, rather than spending many weeks, many months in intensive care in order to be weaned off the ventilator. Imagine this, intensive care can’t provide any quality of life. Intensive care is great when it comes to saving lives. Intensive care is great when it comes to dealing with critical illnesses. But the long-term care for an intensive care patient, if they need ventilation and tracheostomy, intensive care is not the right place. It’s a very sterile place. It’s a place where there’s too many bugs, too many other patients with infections. Especially nowadays with COVID, you certainly want to escape that place as quickly as possible and move to higher ground, so to speak, move to a place, to an area, where there are no infections, and that can only be at home, really.

So also, I should say, if your loved one is in intensive care and has been weaned off the ventilator, but “only has a tracheostomy left”, they still can go home. And if the ICU, for whatever reason, can’t remove the tracheostomy, if your loved one needs a tracheostomy long-term, they also need an intensive care nurse 24 hours a day. Now, why do I say this confidently? If you go to our website intensivecareathome.com, and if you look up the Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines, it’s a section in our website, the Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines, and that’s an evidence-based researched paper that we publish there, where it clearly demands that intensive care nurses with a minimum of two years intensive care experience need to be present at home, in order to safely make the transition from intensive care to home, when someone has a tracheostomy and/or is ventilated, okay? That includes non-invasive ventilation, such as BiPAP or CPAP just with a mask. And again, just as I mentioned, especially also, when it comes to seizure management at home, there’s often also an intensive care nurse needed 24 hours a day.

So, that sort of gives you a bit of an idea. And, when you have a loved one in intensive care, it almost sounds like an insurmountable obstacle to get someone home from intensive care directly. And as I said, your goal shouldn’t necessarily be to use Intensive Care at Home. Your goal should be, get your loved one off the ventilator, get them out of intensive care to a floor or to a hospital ward, and then get them home. We don’t need any involvement there whatsoever. Where we come in really is if patients can’t go anywhere else, but to stay in intensive care indefinitely. That is where we come in, from Intensive Care At Home, and make the transition from the ICU to a home care environment.

So what does that look like? So, it looks like we need to set up your home care environment. And, we need a hospital bed. We need a couple of ventilators. We need a couple of suction machines, a couple of monitors, special care bed, probably a hoist, depending on how mobile your loved one is. That can be a seating hoist. It can be a portable hoist. We need, potentially, a wheelchair. Again, a lot of it depends on the mobility of your loved one. There’s a number of things we need, but we’ve done this many, many times. And you need a nebulizer machine. You need spare tracheostomy tubes. You need a resuscitation bag. You need dilators, tracheal dilators. You need dressings. You need saline. There’s a number of things that need to happen and need to be in place, before you can go home, just on an equipment side of things. But other things that need to be in place is, of course, a critical care nursing team, an intensive care nursing team, that can help to taking your loved one home, 24 hours a day, so they’re not bouncing back into intensive care, because that would defeat the purpose of the whole exercise.

So, before even looking at a team, you also need to make sure that finance is in place. And I’m predominantly now talking about our audience in Australia, and I will talk about our audience in the US in a minute. Let’s just start with our audience in Australia, in particular. For anyone that’s under the age of 65, the NDIS might be an option. The National Disability Insurance Scheme might be an option, or is an option, because most of our clients get funding through the National Disability Insurance Scheme, NDIS, and they pretty much fund the intensive care bed at home. Other funding bodies that fund Intensive Care at Home is, for example, the TAC in Victoria, the Transport Accident Commission. Other organizations that fund intensive care at home is the DVA, the Department of Veteran Affairs. And, at times, we are also receiving funding through hospitals directly. No matter what obstacles you’re facing, the most important thing is that you get the ball rolling.

Now, just quickly sticking with the NDIS, part of what we do is also we provide specialist support coordination through the NDIS. What that means is, a specialist support coordinator is the one that advocates with you and on your behalf to the NDIS, to get the funding that you need, in order to leave intensive care. And again, the NDIS has a pathway there, and if you need the NDIS package to leave intensive care, you should definitely get in contact with us, and we can map out the first step. You can meet our specialist support coordinator, and then we can get the ball rolling.

I should also say that, what’s very important here is, when it comes to the funding argument, an intensive care bed costs around $5,000 to $6,000 per bed day. That basically means 24 hours of intensive care costs $5,000 to $6,000 in a hospital. Here in Australia, it’s 5,000 to 6,000 Australian dollars and my research has shown it’s 5,000 to 6,000 US dollars in the US. And in the UK, it’s anywhere between 3,000 to 4,000 British pounds. But you can already see that there is a business model. It’s not only a health model. Of course, it’s a health model, first and foremost, but it’s also a business model, where you can tap into the weaknesses of the healthcare system. Why would anybody occupy an intensive care bed for weeks, for months on end? An intensive care bed is the most expensive bed in a hospital, the most sought after bed in the hospital? Why would anybody occupy that bed if there’s another option, especially an option that families want, that clients want, where you can cut the cost by half. It’s a win-win situation for everyone.

So, you need to think on an economic level as well. As much as this is an emotional affair too, in terms of you wanting to take your loved one home, that’s very much based on emotion, very much based on family values, on things that you and your family believe in, you also need to argue on an economic level, on a business case level, because the hospitals will respond to that as well. And the hospitals will not so much respond to that you’re cutting the cost of an intensive care bed by half, the hospital will respond to that you’re freeing up the most sought after bed in a hospital, which is an intensive care bed. So again, it’s all about creating win-win situations, and presenting it in such a light to funding bodies.

And it doesn’t matter whether, again, it’s the NDIS, the TAC, the DVA, or even private health insurances. Private health insurances have a big interest in cutting the cost of an ICU bed by 50%. Of course, they do. Again, it’s about the business model, and it’s about providing that win-win situation for everyone. For the funding body, slashing the cost of an ICU bed by 50%. For you, the win is to finally leave intensive care and take your loved one home. And for the hospital, the win is freeing up the ICU bed that is the most sought after and in demand bed in a hospital. So it’s all about the win-win for everyone.

Now next, how quickly can it then happen to go home? Well, once funding is organized, we’ll help you to organize the equipment, and then we’ll help you to get a team together, to hire a team of critical care nurses that can continue working with your loved one at home, and continue the same care and treatment that they were getting in intensive care, simply at home. And that’s all doable. That’s all possible. And I think more and more people are waking up to the fact that it’s absolutely possible. And, just because intensive care units think the only two ways to leave intensive care is, A) to go to a hospital ward or hospital floor, or B) to die, that’s not good enough. There is a third proven option. Millions of hours of intensive care at home have been delivered, predominantly, in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, but also now in Australia. So, nobody can say that this wouldn’t work, and we certainly know how it works, and we know how to set it up, and we know how we can help you.

Now, also another complicating factor in this current environment, we are in November 2021, obviously, one of the most complicating factors at the moment is COVID. And again, it doesn’t matter whether we are in Australia, in the US, in the UK or anywhere else. A lot of families are locked out of intensive care, because of COVID. COVID restrictions means, often, intensive care units limit the visitation time, or they don’t have any visitation time at all. And they sort of say to families, “Well, you got to get on FaceTime, on Zoom or on WhatsApp to see your loved one.” Now, again, if you can use our service, Intensive Care At Home, you can go home. You can eliminate some of those issues. And they’re not issues likely to take, because you want to see your loved one, and you want be around your loved one. And intensive cares are making it incredibly difficult at the moment.

Now, for some of you watching today also, you may have a loved one in intensive care with COVID pneumonia, COVID ARDS. They might already have a tracheostomy, and therefore, it’s going to be very difficult for you, A) to probably visit, but also, B) get them home or see the light at the end of the tunnel, because there is prolonged ventilation weaning. Now, ICUs are full at the moment, all around the world. So again, you need to keep the pressure back on the hospital and say, “Look, here is the service, Intensive Care At Home. We want to go home. Also, we can help you free up your bed, rather than staying in intensive care for another few weeks or another few months. You certainly don’t want that.”

So you got to look at the environment and at the dynamics at play, and you got to work with them. You got to take advantage of them almost. And, the COVID environment, as far as I can see, is not going away anytime soon. I hope it’s going away. But, as of November 2021, I can’t see COVID just dissolve in air. It’s not going away, unfortunately, anytime soon, despite vaccinations. It’s going to stay, and unfortunately it will clog up ICUs for some time to come. And you’ve got to be prepared. And you’ve got to be one step ahead. And you’ve got to also understand what hospitals want. What do hospitals want? They want ICU beds. And if your loved one can’t come off of ventilator, your mom, your dad, your sister, your brother, your spouse, your child, your son, your daughter, nephew, niece, aunt, uncle, you should be looking at Intensive Care at Home.

Now, I quickly want to talk to our US audience as well. Now, we have so many inquiries from America, and I do apologize that we can’t help people in America yet. We’re simply very busy here in Australia. And you would’ve seen a US phone number on our website, intensivecareathome.com, and at least, we can talk to people, and we might be able to point them to some service providers in some areas in the US. But, we don’t know of many. It’s a very specialized skill. Most nursing services have no idea where to start. They work more with the general nursing skills at home, but they’re not really specialized in Intensive Care at Home. It’s a very unique skill, and it can be very difficult to pull off, if you don’t know what you’re doing.

And again, that’s where I think we come in. We believe we do know what we’re doing. And that includes, when hiring a team, which is one of the most challenging parts, because as much as you need the intensive care nursing skills, you also need a team that gels very well with you, with your family, with your loved one. You need the right people in your own home. There is no question. There’s no two ways about it, that you need the right people in your home working with you. Otherwise, it’s doomed to fail.

And, it’s also important for you to understand and to know, that you might have those questions. What does it look like at home? Will it be the same than intensive care? And I can tell you from experience, no, it will be anything but, because you will be in control. You and your loved one will be in control, what you want, what routine you want to have. It’s not like in a hospital, where at 10 o’clock every day, we do the same thing. It’s your job at home to guide us what you want to do next.

And also, given that we’re sort of coming a little bit closer to wrap this up today, I also encourage you to type in your questions now in the chat pad, so that we can get to them before we wrap up today’s video.

So, I really try to condense the steps to going home in this video. It’s easy, but it’s not simple or the other way around, it’s simple, but not easy. The steps are clear. But it’s still a bit of a job for everyone involved, in setting it up, and there needs to be goodwill from all parties. And that can sometimes be one of your major obstacles. Despite the hospitals wanting empty beds, they often don’t want to deal with an external provider. It’s a headache for them to deal with it. It’s often much easier for them to say, “Oh, well, let your mom die. It’s ‘in her best interest’.” Well, we know nothing could be further from the truth. So you need to put your foot down very early on, making sure that they know you want everything done for your loved one.

And if you’re finding that to be a struggle, you should contact us straight away, and you should also check out intensivecarehotline.com, where we provide consulting and advocacy for families in intensive care as well. And the advocacy is certainly a part of what we do, when patients look for Intensive Care at Home, very important aspect of it. And, you might have intensive care teams shutting your requests for Intensive Care at Home down, but you shouldn’t let them. You should be advocating for what you want and what you need. And again, that’s where we can help you with, because we know how intensive care units tick. We know what they want. We know what they don’t want, and they certainly don’t want families to be in control. But we are all about putting families in control of their destiny for their loved one.

So, the other thing that I wanted to quickly talk about, sometimes we have inquiries where people come to us and they say, “After my loved one’s been in ICU for three days, and they’re on a ventilator, can they go home?” And I say, “Look, if that’s the case, we are probably not the right organization, because, A) it’s too early to determine, if after three days, someone needs Intensive Care at Home. We are probably more coming in on the other end, where someone has proven that they can’t get out of intensive care in a hurry. Whereas in your situation, or if you’re in a situation where your loved one has been in ICU for three days, it’s too early to go home. It’s also more difficult for us to set it up, if it’s sort of short-term. It can be done, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a bit more difficult for us to set this up.” So really, the people that I’m talking to today are predominantly people that have a loved one in intensive care, for many weeks, on a ventilator with the tracheostomy and the inability to be weaned off.

Also, I want to quickly talk about to our US audience again. I want to quickly talk about LTAC. As you might have heard me say before, I do believe that LTACs are a better version of a nursing home, and they’re just a disaster area, from my experience. The people that I’ve been talking to at LTAC, generally speaking, don’t seem to have a clue what they’re talking about. It’s a shame that in America, often a tracheostomy leads to LTAC, and people don’t get a real chance to come off the ventilator as quickly as possible.

There have in many other countries, where LTACs don’t exist, and people stay in intensive care to have the ventilator and the tracheostomy weaning done, in an environment, where they have all the skills, all the expertise, all the doctors, all the nurses around, to make things happen. And they don’t have that skill in LTAC. Full stop. No matter what they say. You got to get it from the horse’s mouth. I’ve spoken to so many people in LTAC, doctors, nurses, families, patients, it’s just an absolute nightmare and an absolutely disaster area. So keep focusing on Intensive Care at Home instead, rather than going to LTAC.

Now, I’m still waiting for your questions to come in. I’m looking forward to answering them, if you have any. If not, then I do want to wrap this up in a minute. I’ll keep talking for a minute so you can type in your questions if you have any. Now, if you have a loved one in intensive care, and you want to go home, go and check out intensivecareathome.com, and contact us there.

Oh, here’s a question. “Hello. My aunt is in an LTAC with tracheostomy.” Hang on, before that question escapes me. Just give me a second, please. This is from Taylor. “Hello. My aunt is in an LTAC with tracheostomy, shuttled from one facility to another. And they’re duplicating efforts and prolonging dependence. I want her off this tracheostomy. What can be done?” So, Taylor, are you saying she’s not ventilated? She just has a tracheostomy? Can you elaborate whether she’s ventilated and tracheostomy, or just tracheostomy and she’s been weaned off the ventilator already?

Taylor says, “Weaned off ventilator and just the tracheostomy.” Okay, great information, Taylor. I’ll explain it to you in a minute, what should be done next. Can you also share with me why you think she can’t be weaned off the tracheostomy? And I’ll tell you what needs to happen with the tracheostomy.

Taylor says, “Had swallow test.” Okay. And what was the reason for her to have the tracheostomy in the first place? Can you just tell me, did she have a stroke? Did she have COVID? “She’s talking.” Okay. That’s great. That’s great. What else? Can you tell me why did she end up in that situation in the first place? Can you tell me? “Coughs well.” Okay. Great. Coughs, talks, swallowing test. “COVID complications.” Okay. Okay. Coughs, talks and has a swallow test. Has she passed the swallow test? “vented in ICU, complications from COVID.” Yep. Okay. “No stroke, no neurological complications.” Yeah. Okay, great. Great. And how often does she need suction? Do you know? How often does she need suction? “No other complications.” Okay. How often does she need suction? Do you know?

If you can let me know how often she needs suction, then I’m sure I can point you into the next steps. All right. I assume you don’t know how often she needs suction. “They are negligent, but suction not often.” Okay. Taylor, I would say your aunt is ready to have that tracheostomy removed, because these are the things that need to happen. She needs to have a good, strong cough. She needs to be able to talk. She needs to be able to swallow. Oh, if they do suction twice a day, that tracheostomy, I argue, needs to come out. It needs to come out. So your aunt’s brain is working. It’s intact. Is she on any oxygen? Do you know if she’s on any oxygen?

“Absolutely intact.” Okay. Yeah. “Brain is working.” And last question from my end is, is she on any oxygen? “No oxygen.” Okay. I argue, Taylor, that tracheostomy needs to come out. I can’t see any reason why it can’t come out, because those are the criteria that needs to be met. She needs to have a good, strong cough, minimal suction. She needs to swallow, and she needs to be able to talk. And sometimes, even when people can’t talk, they have the tracheostomy removed. No oxygen. It needs to come out. Do you know the size tracheostomy she has? Most adults have a size 6, 7, 8 or 9, most adults. Sometimes, it’s a 6.5, 7.5, 8.5.

You don’t know the size. Yeah, no, that’s okay. That’s okay. I argue, get in there, get them going, and ask them to take the tracheostomy out. Your aunt will be thanking you for the rest of her life. Taylor, those are the criteria. The only thing that I can hear you’re not 100% confident about is if she can swallow. But if her brain is intact, I argue, she can swallow. The reason people often can’t swallow is if they had a stroke or any other neurological issue. And that’s often when people end up with a tracheostomy, simply because they can’t swallow. Yep. No, go there tomorrow. Are you the power of attorney for your aunt? Can you make decisions on her behalf?

“She was on puree foods.” Well, even better. Even better. Yeah, if you’re the power of attorney there, have a discussion with them, and your aunt should get on with her life and not worry about the tracheostomy. I hope that’s an accurate assessment, but you’re a healthcare proxy. Okay, great. Great. I think, well, you’ve got all the right to move things forward with her.

If those things that you just mentioned have only been in place for a few days, they may want to wait for a few more days. But if the things that you just described so vividly have been happening for the last week, I argue that tracheostomy needs to come out. The reason I asked you what size tracheostomy does she have, if they’re concerned, sometimes, for example, if she has a size 8 tracheostomy, sometimes they can also go step by step, downsize the trach, maybe to a size 6, sometimes even to a size 4, before they take it out completely. So I’ve seen that too. So there may be several approaches, but I do believe everything that you’ve shared with me, Taylor. It’s time for that tracheostomy to come out, and hopefully, your aunt can get on with her life, can get on to rehab or whatever she needs to do next.

If you want me to, I’m very happy to have a look at your aunt’s case a bit closer. If you get stuck, you can always call me. Taylor’s saying, “She’s back to O2. They said something about reducing it from 0.28 to 0.24, but not sure what that is.” Yeah, I can tell you what it is, Taylor. Basically, the air that we are breathing in, room air, the air that you and I are breathing in, is 21% oxygen. Okay. 21% oxygen. And some people will refer to as 0.21. Now you are saying back to O2. They said something about reducing from 0.28 to 0.24. Basically means they’re reducing oxygen from 28% to 24%, which is almost room air, because room air is 21%. That should not stop her from having the tracheostomy removed. If she was on 40% oxygen, I would be worried. But 24%, 28% oxygen, that’s very close to room air anyway. And, O2 stats are at 100%.

Is she still getting nebulizers? Do you know if she’s getting nebulizers? Like normal saline nebulizers? And also, do you know if she has an inner cannula, like an inner tube? You’re not sure. Not sure about nebulizer, and you’re probably not sure about the inner tube. But in either case, it should not stop her from having that tracheostomy removed. That’s very, very promising. Very, very promising. Yeah, not sure. That’s okay. It’s probably not a make or break, but she might still be on some nebulizers, and she might have an inner cannula, but it’s not a make or break, because all other boxes, by the sounds of things, are ticked. But you also got to keep in mind, the LTAC might want to keep her there for financial gains, I hate to say it, so you may want to keep pushing for that tracheostomy removed, so your aunt can get out of there as quickly as possible.

Okay. I want to wrap this up in a minute. Taylor, did you have, or any other viewers, did you have any other questions. It’s a pleasure, Taylor, and if you need more help, just contact me on our website, intensivecareathome.com. Just call me on my US number, which is (+1) 415-915-0090. That’s again, (+1) 415-915-0090.

All right. I want to wrap this up. If you have a loved one in intensive care, go and check out intensivecareathome.com, and also check out intensivecarehotline.com, where we provide consulting and advocacy for families in intensive care, also in LTAC.

And, I want to thank you so much for coming onto the call. If you liked this video, give it a thumbs up. Subscribe to my YouTube channel. Hit the notification bell and leave your comments, below this video, what you want to see next, or what questions you have, or what insights you have from this video.

Thanks again for coming onto this call, and there will be another livestream next week, at the same time. Thank you so much. Take care.

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.