After 60 days of treatment, a 45-year-old COVID-19 patient with 90% lung involvement was discharged from the Government Medical College Hospital, Omandurar Estate, on August 24.
A resident of Kilpauk, the patient was admitted to the hospital on June 26 with complaints of fever and breathlessness. On arrival, doctors found his oxygen saturation to be very low at 35%. A CT scan showed 90% involvement of the lungs because of COVID-19 pneumonia, a press release said.
“It is very difficult to manage patients in whom the lung involvement exceeds 30% to 40%. In the case of this patient, he had 90% lung involvement on arrival at the hospital. His oxygen saturation was low and doctors had to treat him on an emergency basis,” said R. Jayanthi, dean, Government Medical College Hospital, Omandurar Estate.
She said he was overweight and did not have any other co-morbidities. He had fever and breathlessness for four days before arriving at the hospital. He was immediately admitted to the intensive care unit and treated with assisted ventilation, high-flow oxygen and given protocol-based drugs.
“He was put on an extended dose of remdesivir. He was also given tocilizumab and low molecular weight heparin. He came off oxygen support slowly. We downgraded the oxygen administration in a phased manner,” she said.
He was on prone nursing, and later underwent physiotherapy for three days, she said.
He was discharged on August 24. The dean, along with the team of doctors who treated him, S.M. Sujatha, Ranjani and Padmanabhan, and nodal officer Ramesh Mahalingam, wished him well on his discharge, the release said.
Dr. Mahalingam said so far, more than 15,000 in-patients had been treated for COVID-19 at the hospital with a recovery rate of 90%. A total of 11,000 CT scans were done for patients since the inauguration of the COVID-19 facility on March 27, he added.