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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 and 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 including BiPAP (bilevel positive airway pressure), CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure), VPAP (variable positive airway pressure), and medically-complex patients at home including home TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition) IV antibiotics, IV fluids, and also IV potassium or magnesium infusions.
So, in today’s video blog, I want to answer a question from a reader. It’s a rather sad question, but I do believe it is very important that families in intensive care know about what options are available to them because quite frankly, families in intensive care don’t know what they don’t know. Now, let’s read out a question from a reader and see what she says and how we can answer that question.
“So, my sister was in ICU last year with respiratory failure due to a respiratory infection, metabolic acidosis, bronchospasm in a patient with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), with acute pulmonary edema. Would she have survived if she had a tracheostomy rather than be on a ventilator with CPAP?
My sister was given the option of a tracheostomy, but my sister’s husband decided not to proceed and opted for palliative care and let her die. Intensive care told her that she would be in intensive care with no option to live. Wow, what a powerful but also very sad story.
And well, quite frankly, your sister could have gone home with Intensive Care at Home. I mean, we’ve got so many clients at home with Intensive Care at Home that are on CPAP, with a tracheostomy, with COPD. And it sounds to me like if she had metabolic acidosis, that the CPAP was not sufficient to get her carbon dioxide down sufficiently enough to get rid of the metabolic acidosis. So, it could have been also respiratory acidosis in this situation, especially with COPD. Now, we would need to look at the medical records to establish that. But one way or another, your sister could have gone home with Intensive Care at Home.
Again, this comes back to what I’ve been saying for a decade now that the biggest challenge for families in intensive care is that they don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know what to look for. They don’t know what questions to ask. They don’t know their rights and they don’t know how to manage doctors and nurses in intensive care.
And therefore it leaves them with not making informed decisions and there’s plenty of intensive care units out there as well who don’t know that Intensive Care at Home is even a thing that we even exist. So again, also comes back to intensive care units not knowing what they don’t know.
So it comes back to education, knowing what your rights are, knowing about treatment options and acting on them, and in some instances, we also provide palliative care, end of life care at home. So sometimes as much as we improve quality of life for our clients and their families, we also improve quality of end of life.
That’s a real term and it’s a real thing. Who wants to die in an ICU if they can pass away at home in a much nicer, family-friendly and holistic environment? Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
So, I hope that makes sense that in a situation like that where yes, the intensive care team did the right thing by offering a tracheostomy, but then no one knew what could happen on the other end.
So, I hope that helps and with Intensive Care at Home. At the moment, we are operating all around Australia in all major capital cities, including regional and rural areas. So go to intensivecareathome.com and contact us on our website through the contact form or just email us to [email protected] or call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website.
Now, and if you have a loved one in intensive care and you are looking for similar solutions, please contact us as well or if you are at home already and you have insufficient support and I encourage you to contact us as well.
Now, also we are an NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme), TAC (Transport Accident Commission), ICare, NIISQ (National Injury Insurance Scheme Queensland), DVA (Department of Veteran Affairs) approved service provider. We have also received funding through Departments of Health. So please contact us if you need help.
And if you are a critical care nurse and you’re looking for a job, we have jobs available for critical care, registered nurses in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane predominantly. So we absolutely want to hear from you.
And if you are an NDIS support coordinator and you’re looking for nursing care for one of your participants, please contact us as well. This includes if you’re needing an NDIS nursing assessment for your participant or if you are a participant yourself and you need a nursing assessment and nursing care, please contact us as well. We wouldn’t be in business if there wasn’t nursing care funding for NDIS participants, but also for other participants.
And if you are an ICU consultant, we want to hear from you as well. We are currently expanding our medical team. And if you’re an ICU consultant, and you want to work with us, please contact us as well.
So, thank you so much for watching this video today.
Again, call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website at intensivecareathome.com.
Send us an email to [email protected].
Also have a look at our membership for families in intensive care and in Intensive Care at Home at intensivecaresupport.org.
There, you have access to me and my team 24 hours a day in a membership area and via email and we answer all questions, intensive care and Intensive Care at Home related.
And we also provide on top of nursing assessments, but we also provide medical record reviews. If you are interested in that. Thank you so much for watching.
Subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families in intensive care and Intensive Care at Home. Share the video with your friends and families. Click the like button, click the notification bell, and comment below what you want to see next or what questions and insights you have from this video.
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.