The 5 reasons why you should not trust the Intensive Care team blindly if your loved one is critically ill in ICU
Published: Tue, 11/12/13
instantly improve the lives of Families of critically ill Patients
in Intensive Care, so that you can have real power, real control
and so that you can influence decision making, even if you're
not a doctor or a nurse in Intensive Care!
In last week's blog I showed you "How you and your Family
are perceived is directly linked to the care your critically ill
loved one is receiving or not receiving in Intensive Care". If
you haven't read the blog, you can read, watch or listen to it
here. http://intensivecarehotline.com/?p=3764
In this week's blog I want to show you "The 5 reasons why
you should not trust the Intensive Care team blindly if your loved
one is critically ill in Intensive Care".
If your loved one has been admitted to Intensive Care with critical
illness, chances are that you are out of your comfort zone and
chances are that you feel, think or see that you have no control,
you have no power and that you can't influence any decision
making.
You are probably very nervous and anxious and you probably
haven't slept or eaten properly in the last few days, as you
feel very vulnerable, stressed, challenged, frustrated and
overwhelmed by the experience of having your loved one critically
ill in Intensive Care.
And depending on the diagnosis and the prognosis of your critically
ill loved one, you may not necessarily feel like things are getting
better and you may feel like things are getting worse.
Furthermore, you also feel, think or see that with the situation
for your loved being so grim that you have lost control, power and
influence and other people are running the show and may
deliberately exclude you from the decision making process!
It's a very bad and negative feeling to have and there are many
reasons why you shouldn't take the things that you see and that
you and you're family are being told by the Intensive Care team
for face value! In fact you should ALWAYS make up your own mind,
irrespective whether you have any knowledge about Intensive Care or
not.
More importantly there are 5 distinct reasons why you should not
trust the Intensive Care team blindly and the Intensive Care team
of course has no interest in letting you look behind the scenes and
give you insight into the politics and the intrigue of an Intensive
Care Unit that may heavily impact on how the Intensive Care team
may position your critically ill loved one's diagnosis and
prognosis. Those 5 distinct reasons may also impact on the care and
treatment your critically ill loved one is receiving or not
receiving!
So let's look at those 5 distinct reasons and why you should
not trust the Intensive Care team blindly and why you should always
make up your own mind, irrespective of whether you are a doctor or
a nurse!
Reason number 1: The Financial viability of your loved one's
admission to Intensive Care
The Hospital sector and Intensive Care in particular is a business
and it's often run as a business. Whether your critically ill
loved one is privately insured or whether your critically ill loved
one falls under a government scheme, your loved one's diagnosis
will be assessed and weighted against economic criteria and
therefore the diagnosis and prognosis might get "sold" to
you according to how the Intensive Care Unit thinks your loved
one's admission and treatment would make economic sense to the
Hospital or the Intensive Care Unit. Therefore, you need to ask
whether your critically ill loved one's admission would be
eating into the budget of the Intensive Care Unit or whether they
think they will be losing money. Or saying it differently is
treating your critically ill loved one financially viable for the
Intensive Care Unit? Is going through a lengthy and costly stay in
Intensive Care in the best interest of the Intensive Care Unit? And
that's basically where the rubber hits the road. Unfortunately
this is not about your critically ill loved one. This is about the
Intensive Care Unit's agenda and their interests. And you and
your Family need to be acutely aware of this, because otherwise
other people will be controlling you, your Family and most
importantly they will be controlling the destiny of your critically
ill loved one!
Reason number 2: Other Patients awaiting admission to Intensive Care
Know this. Beds in an Intensive Care Unit are a scarcity and are in
demand. Not only are the physical beds a scarcity and in demand.
Intensive Care staff, doctors and nurses are a scarcity and in
demand as well!
Therefore, the Intensive Care team has an acute awareness that
usually a bed in Intensive Care never gets 'cold' so to
speak. If a Patient is being discharged from Intensive Care, the
next admission is usually not far away and around the corner.
Therefore, if your critically ill loved one is in a situation where
CONTINUE READING for the other 3 reasons HERE
http://intensivecarehotline.com/?p=3810