Ballari hospital delivers 101 babies of Covid-19 patients

Ballari: There is reason to cheer and celebrate as Ballari District Hospital, which is seeing a surge in Covid cases, successfully performed 101 deliveries of women who were infected by the novel coronavirus in the last two months.
The district achieved this milestone on Friday by performing 101 deliveries in the last two months, from June 25th to August 28. It has now instilled confidence among many pregnant women who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus in the district, that they are now in the safe hands of the district hospital personnel.
Sharing the success story of the hospital, Dr Basareddi, district surgeon and nodal officer of the district Covid hospital, told TOI that when a pregnant woman with a positive report was admitted to their hospital in the June, it was a big challenge for the doctors to ensure a safe delivery .
“On June 25 we conducted the first delivery of a woman who had tested positive for Covid-19. Both the mother and the newborn were healthy and safe. It boosted our confidence, and made us face more such challenges with confidence,” he said.
“Initially we had tough time to perform deliveries of Covid patients as doctors and nurses feared to spend even two hours with infected patients, since there were chances of getting infected. Somehow, we continued to boost the confidence of our doctors, nurses and other staff. Gradually, we picked up the pace. In the process, 2-3 of our doctors also tested positive but were cured and got back to duty,” he said.
“As a result of the concerted efforts and measures taken by the doctors of the department of obstetrics and gynaecology, we are today able to achieve this milestone,” he said.
“Of the 101 deliveries, 72 were performed through C-section and 29 were normal deliveries. Out of the 72 Caesarean deliveries, 21 cases were very critical as the women had comorbidities like hypertension, high sugar and other chronic diseases. We carefully handled these cases and successfully performed the deliveries. Now, five newborn babies have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, but all the babies are out of danger,” he added.
Deputy commissioner S S Nakul praised the doctors for their achievement and said that the district is in the second place in delivering babies of Covid-19 patients after Bengaluru.