It was a medical drama that had entire Kerala on edge on Tuesday.
A 15-day-old infant boy, with a congenital heart disease and multiple cardiac problems, was being rushed from a hospital in Mangaluru to Thiruvananthapuram by road — a distance of about 600 km — through a green channel.
His parents had apparently been persuaded to seek treatment in the State capital despite the risk of transporting the seriously ill baby.
It took the personal intervention of Health Minister K.K. Shylaja to convince the parents to accept an offer of free treatment by the State government.
Senior health officials told The Hindu that the District Early Intervention Centre of the Health Department in Kasaragod had contacted the person coordinating the green channel arrangements at 10 a.m. to inform him that the government’s Hridyam programme could treat the infant for free in Kozhikode or Kochi, considerably reducing the travel time.
Reluctant initially
However, the family did not respond to the offer.
“Around 2 p.m., after the child had been on the road for almost five hours in a ventilated condition, following a call from Ms. Shylaja, we again contacted the family... But till the Health Minister herself got in touch with the parents, they were not willing to change their plans,” an official said.
Following the Minister’s call, the baby was rushed to the paediatric cardiology division at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) in Kochi.
Kerala’s unique and comprehensive programme Hridyam takes care of all congenital paediatric cardiac surgeries, including emergencies, through a public-private partnership network of hospitals.
Network of hospitals
“Because of our good network of empanelled hospitals, none of our sick babies registered under Hridyam need to travel for more than three hours to access medical care,” he added.
The baby was born at a private hospital in Kasaragod.
But following respiratory distress after discharge, the baby was admitted in the neonatal intensive care unit at Father Muller Hospital in Mangaluru on April 3.
By the time the diagnosis was made, the newborn had sustained liver and kidney failure and had developed pneumonia, following which it was ventilated.
Sources said that it was the parents’ plan, possibly persuaded by some middlemen that subsidised treatment was available only in the capital, though they had been advised about the risk in transportation.
Observation
Doctors have suggested a 24-hour assessment before making further treatment plans for the baby, including surgery.
R. Krishna Kumar, head of the Paediatric Cardiology Department at AIMS, said the baby’s condition was critical and he would be in observation in the NICU for 24-48 hours to stabilise the condition.