Mumbai: Emergency aid norms still vague, doctor made to run around for a stitch

Malathy Iyer & Sumitra Debroy | TNN | Apr 21, 2020, 11:02 IST

NMMC Hospital staff cheer as a Covid-positive woman who had delivered a girl on April 6 is discharged.

MUMBAI: Instead of suturing a bleeding wound sustained by a first-year resident doctor in the ICU, seniors at KEM Hospital, Parel, sent her out for medical aid because, in an unusual coincidence, they found out at that moment that she had tested positive for Covid-19. After a visit to two civic hospitals, the wound was finally attended to.
From Parel, the resident was taken to civic-run Kasturba Hospital, near Chinchpokli, and then to Seven Hills Hospital in Andheri — all for a single stitch that her wound needed. The incident that took place late in the evening a few days ago has underlined how nearly one-and-half months into the epidemic, there is no clarity on emergency treatment protocols even in the city’s frontline hospitals.
Some KEM doctors were upset, but dean Dr Hemant Deshmukh maintained his hospital had followed the rules in toto.
The girl reportedly injured her hand while trying to fix the suction pump onto a non-Covid patient. “When she was brought to emergency care, someone remembered her Covid report was awaited. A quick check revealed that she was positive,” said Dr Deshmukh.
Some senior doctors insisted to the dean that the surgery operation theatre shouldn’t be opened for a Covid patient as it would lead to contamination and would need sanitisation for future use. “So we stopped the bleeding and sent her to Kasturba Hospital along with a lecturer from the surgery department,” said Deshmukh.
Asked why such a small injury couldn’t be sutured within the sprawling hospital, Deshmukh said KEM hasn’t been designated a Covid hospital. “We cannot treat mild Covid patients. However, if a serious Covid patient is brought here, we have to treat him,” he said. Staffers and other resident doctors who were in MICU have been put in quarantine; two have already tested negative.
Inquiries with Kasturba Hospital revealed that the resident was turned away as the infectious diseases hospital doesn’t have a working operation theatre.
She was taken to Seven Hills Hospital, a defunct hospital resurrected for Covid patients only. Technically, this hospital cannot do surgical procedures. “It was brought to my notice that a young Covidpositive patient with an open wound was brought to our hospital. I asked my doctors to suture it as it only needed one stitch,” said Dr Mohan Joshi, who headed Seven Hills Hospital till a couple days ago.
A senior doctor from another civic hospital said, “The larger point is whether the patient had Covid or not, first aid is always possible. The rule is to treat a patient who comes into the hospital with a bleeding injury whatever their medical status.”