NEW DELHI: A team of Max Saket doctors who specially flew down to Kathmandu for a 37-year-old critically-ill Covid pneumonia patient on ECMO machine from Nepal and shifted him to the city hospital.
The patient from Uttarakhand who was in Nepal for a business trip, plummeted rapidly despite 100% ventilator support due to Covid pneumonia with extensive Lung involvement (ARDS).
He was put on a ventilator in a hospital in Nepal but continued to be sick. Elaborating on the condition of the patient, Dr. Kewal Krishan, Director, Heart Transplant & Ventricular Assist Devices, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Max Hospital, Saket said, “The patient had been complaining of fever for over a month and was initially treated at home. After 3-4 days, however, he developed difficulty in breathing and was diagnosed with Covid-19.”
“He was admitted in a hospital in Kathmandu, but his oxygen saturation levels kept dropping despite mechanical ventilation. That’s when we were contacted by the patient’s family and we flew down to Kathmandu and put him on VV ECMO support.”
Dr. Vivek Nangia, Principal Director & Chief of Pulmonology (Cluster 1), Max Super Speciality Hospital, Saket said, “We are privileged that this facility is available with us. With this we can save the lives of people who are on ventilators and not improving. One of its major advantages is that it acts as an artificial lung outside the body and protects the patient from ventilator-related complications.”