Didn't realize 70-80% of patients on vents will die

[WombOfOnesOwn]

Just that, really.

I am friends with healthcare providers, several in emergency departments and intensive care/treatment units, from several different countries and US states. In talking to them about coronavirus, the thing that shocked me most, especially given the huge push for ventilators, is that most ventilated patients will still die.

Somehow I guess I figured it was 50/50 or better, especially with how everyone's acting about the shortages of ventilators. It's also awful because I think a lot of the people about to be ventilated don't realize how bad their odds are.

I've seen similar numbers from several different people, so I don't think it's just one bad hospital where a friend is working reporting bad stats.

I have been trying to get information about how much of this is age related, but with very little luck. My parents (in their 60s) and I (in my 30s) would like to know what those chances are so that we could be realistic about decisionmaking in the circumstance that we were among the unlucky few to end up in this situation.

Does anyone have some light they can shed? Studies or recent research? Or anything contradicting what I've heard so far, that indicates better success getting patients off-ventilator and recovered? It's a lot of trauma to put the human body through when the odds start growing slimmer.

If people don't seek medical attention for someone who clearly needs it, isn't that a criminal matter?

Besides ventilation, hospitals can do a lot to ease someone's passing, with pain relief and sedation etc.

Letting a family member die at home who may have benefited from sedation/pain relief, because you are worried you wouldn't get to be with them in hospital, is both misguided and selfish.

The police WOULD turn up due to it being an unexpected death, and they do question the actions taken. And then the coroner often has to be involved.

Call an ambulance people!

The truth is that quite a lot of these individuals [in critical care] are going to die anyway and there is a fear that we are just ventilating them for the sake of it, for the sake of doing something for them, even though it won’t be effective
that's what I'm starting to think, and is it not the case that the intubation procedure exposes health care worker to heavy droplet contamination...in other words we are risking the lives of our nurses and doctors for nothing:(

Caveat to my comment: If the GP knows about the illness and has said to stay and die at home then that's different as they can certify death and it won't be classed as I expected.

*unexpected Not I expected FFS!

that's what I'm starting to think, and is it not the case that the intubation procedure exposes health care worker to heavy droplet contamination...in other words we are risking the lives of our nurses and doctors for nothing

Tell that to the 50% of people who survived.

www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30633-4/fulltext

My brother was ventilated and survived. He has just recovered from Covid-19. He is 53

I am in the shielded group. Even with my condition i should live another 30 years. If my story was in the papers you would all be saying i was close to death anyway.

It makes you wonder whether it would make more sense to provide palliative care to those people who are less likely to recover and get off ventilation.

I wouldn't alloutofducks. I'm in the shielded group too. I know the difference and most other people do too. This pandemic has uncloseted a few psychopaths on MN but most people realise that coronavirus is robbing decades from the lives of those with pre-existing conditions.

If my story was in the papers you would all be saying i was close to death anyway.

Yes 😥 my daughter too, ‘extremely vulnerable’ and ‘shielded’ but her consultant has said she has a ‘normal life expectancy’, so at least another 60 years (she’s 8).

And someone who has no or little chance would not be put on a ventilator anyway

to provide palliative care to those people who are less likely to recover and get off ventilation.

This will already be happening to some extent. Intensivists make decisions like this a couple of times a week in normal circumstances.
The problem is, doctors will usually sensitively discuss probable outcomes face to face with next of kin, and the family will have time to be on board. Now, families cannot accompany loved ones to hospital, and these serious, sensitive discussions will not have the opportunity to take place in person. It can be very hard to believe how desperately ill your loved one is when you cannot see them with your own eyes, conversations over the phone about palliative care may not result in the same decisions as might be made in usual circumstances.

It’s desperately sad, but I do trust our HCPs to make the best decisions while we cannot be there. At least in the UK we don’t have the added problem of how to pay the medical bills, so finances are never part of the decision making process.

My mother died on a ventilator.

It was the last ditch attempt at pain relief and a small chance of recovery.

She was knocked out with GA and put on a ventilator as her lungs were failing, along with all the other organs in her body, and died of sepsis and heart failure. The only pain relief available would worsen her condition. I would hate for anyone in this position to be denied a ventilator.

@Melroses So sorry about your mum

My brother was ventilated and survived. He has just recovered from Covid-19. He is 53
YAY! that's great, how is he?

because Germany are reporting deaths differently to everyone else. If someone with cancer gets Covid and dies they are recorded as having died of cancer

they're not, if someone has Covid, they're reporting it as Covid.

And yes they are testing far more people so their reported cases are much higher than ours.

But if you just take death rates in proportion to population, their rate is much lower than ours and everyone else's and it's clearly not just down the availability of ventilators if the success rate is 50-50.

2 NHS doctors have now died. Both were healthy enough to still be working (although in their 60s, I believe).

Another poor guy has died at 55.

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-52084915?intlink_from_url=www.bbc.co.uk/news/england&link_location=live-reporting-story" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-52084915?intlink_from_url=www.bbc.co.uk/news/england&link_location=live-reporting-story

@UYScuti glad to hear that. How long was he on the ventilator?

I am in the shielded group. Even with my condition i should live another 30 years. If my story was in the papers you would all be saying i was close to death anyway.

alloutoffucks I wouldn't and that is why you are shielded, to protect you, to try and keep you safe, whilst they develop a vaccine or better treatment options. We want you to live for those 30 years and even if it was 1 year I wouldn't want anyone to lose precious time

@cologne4711 it’s because median age of people affected in Germany is in the 40s whereas for Italy and uK is in the 60s. Will even out over time as it spreads.

"Intensive care" isn't always ventilators. Ventilator patients are all in intensive care, but not all ICU patients are ventilated. If the ICU death rate is 50%, it's probable the mechanically-ventilated death rate is higher, as these patients are even more sick.

That does go some way to explaining the discrepancy between UK and US numbers -- I think our overall ICU numbers are probably very similar, 50/50, but the ventilator numbers look worse.

That Swiss article suggested that some test kits may give false positives.
I wonder if that is why the German figures for infection are so high compared to death rates....and why the U.K. is low in numbers tested, if we are not using the dodgy tests?

@SirChing Thank you x. It was a horrible way to go, but quick.