URGENT ADVICE - Challenge Doctors

[Starlight2000]

ICU doctors are refusing to give my father further treatment & stated if he deteriorates they will not get involved as they believe he will not wake up from his coma but he has only been out of sedation for 13 days following a cardiac arrest. He is not brain dead but has hypoxia brain injury. They have put DNR on his file without permission but we are currently with our legal team opposing this. However, we are worried about him as he could have new infections and they are not intervening and worried about his health.

What can we do to challenge ICU doctor for now? How do we scare them into acting? The legal team are currently getting in touch with their legal team. However, we are worried for the moment?

Any advice or anyone that has dealt with a similar situation. How did you fight them?

[Sepsur]

I’m so sorry to read your post - that is an awful situation, I’m afraid I have no experience beyond these two points - in U.K. you can ask for a second opinion - but it is not granted for sure, you can contact PALS team of hospital a raise your concerns. I guess the next is to contact your local press/tv news

[FamilyHistorian]

I agree with Sepsur. In the uk pals can act as your advocate

[wullie-thomson]

Hi I was in a coma with covid last September and I have a lot of unanswered questions about things in my medical records at time of coma and before. Things I never knew about but now hospital deny its me and say that a mistake was made on my records at time I was in coma it indicates I have 2 small brain bleeds and they messed up with giving me antibiotics when I got sepsis from a line while in coma. I can't even get a breathing test done now because I don't smoke after having single organ failure. I have just complained today for a meeting with hospital as I have scans I have been looking through myself and can see similarities which they themselves describe on my scan but now deny. I am now getting a meeting arranged with managers shortly. Fight everything as these people started blaming my mental health. I was undersedated in coma but there is things I remember and I tried to leave hospital Twice with the treatment I was getting. Fight and don't give up and get all hospital records sent out to you as we're not getting told we have underlying issues before thes things happen to us.

[Hidden]

Hi. I was in ICU initially for 4 weeks with sepsis, and had to return from a general ward to ICU with covid for a 10 week period.

Towards the end of my second stint in ICU one of the doctors said that they would not be able to give me the same treatments again as it was unlikely my body would be strong enough to cope.

Whether it was a missunderstanding I was a bit upset by what had been said. I told my next of kin and they spoke to the ICU dept. About a day later the same doctor approached me and now said they would resusitate may if necessary.

I think when he first spoke to me he probably was not thinking.

As it happens I improved enough to be transfered.

I always maintain ICU is an extreme place to be and likewise the treatments given. I was not expected to survive the sepsis, and also a couple of times when I had covid (I read my clinical notes).

[Mich898]

Hi there. Had the same issue you were having, my dad had a severe stroke but not to mention the ambulance took ages to get to him . Once he got there, within the required time frame the doctors didn't give him the clot busting injection and caused him to have another stroke over night...he was then in a coma. In ICU for 3 weeks. Not long after they said they weren't seeing improvement and said they can't do anything and basically moved him back to a general ward. We fighted for him to get a tracheostomy, for them to keep giving the medications and they even wanted to stop the food. ... disgusting hospital I will never forgive them. We didn't have a power of attorney and it was all new to us, doctors moved him without our permission and not long after he passed away as the people at night messed with his tracheo tube... The doctors always kept calling us in this family meeting. He wasn't brain dead as u say like your dad. Actually there was some improvement, but the doctors were very negative. The stroke causes half his brain to be damaged, but they didn't do enough to get his Glasgow Coma scale number up and also put DNR on his notes when we never agreed anything..... He was getting constant infections. Try to move him to a hospital which deals with that issue particularly, as soon as you can!!