Buying time costs patients’ lives in Kamptee

Nagpur: A 50-year-old patient visited clinic of Dr Manish Dipani, a private practitioner at Kamptee, complaining of cough and breathlessness a few days ago. “Her oxygen level was at 53. I checked again with another pulse oximeter which showed a level of 50. Oxygen level dipping below 95 is not a good symptom. When I asked her to get a Covid test done, her son and daughter-in-law admitted that she was avoiding it since many days.
“I referred her to a government hospital for the test. In less than couple of hours after they went, I came to know that the patient had died,” said Dr Dipani.
Dr Manoj Gurdasani, also a private practitioner in Kamptee, had a similar story to tell. A patient complained of fever and his oxygen level was at 93. “He ignored the written advice and did not go for the test till another four days. He passed away a day after and tested positive later on,” said Dr Gurdasani.
Private doctors in Kamptee town, which has emerged as a Covid hotspot, say they have come across cases of patients fast developing critical symptoms as they kept avoiding tests hoping to get well soon.
Doctors say this does not rule out chances of some of the fatalities going unrecorded as deaths are happening even before patients are getting tested for Covid.
A pathology laboratory owner said on the condition of anonymity that there have been 4 to 5 deaths of bed-ridden senior citizens in a locality at Kamptee. “They died recently after sudden deterioration in their health. Even as they were bed-ridden there was no other major health issues all these days. Such persons can be suspected to have died of Covid, but there is no record. The kin manage to do the last rites by arranging death certificate from their family doctors,” the lab owner said.
According to doctors, even the written advice in the prescription is being ignored. “Not only this, patients are also not giving the correct details like their name, phone number and address,” said Dipani as others also agreed.
“There were patients with oxygen level of 87 and 93, they were advised tests but they did not return for a review,” he said
The doctors said, however they are referring Covid tests for any patient having symptoms like cough, fever and body ache. The number of persons coming to the clinics with such symptoms has gone up substantially.
Dr Rajesh Dipani, also a private practitioners at Kamptee, said he has also come across a case with symptoms that cannot be directly linked with Covid.
“As against the known symptoms like fever, cough and cold, a patient had severe vomiting. On being tested he was found to be positive. There are chances that he may be having mild fever earlier. There were some other cases of diarrhoea too but the patients had other Covid symptoms like lack of test or smell. They were also tested positive,” he said.