+VE REPORT: Vidarbha doctors save more than 5,000 critical patients, reduce deaths

NAGPUR: While the focus has mostly been on Covid-19 deaths, thousands are recovering from the infection every day.
Out of the about 94,000 coronavirus positive till date in region, more than 64,000 patients have recovered fully — a recovery rate of around 70%. Cases are increasing daily but, simultaneously, the recovery rate too showing a good trend.
TOI analysis of data on patients collected from some of the leading Covid hospitals across Vidarbha, reveals that more than 5,000 of the discharged patients had ‘severe or very severe condition’.
In general, these patients require oxygen support in the form of non-invasive ventilation (NIV) for about a week. Some of them require high-end antiviral medicines and ICU beds, and, sometimes, off-label plasma therapy too. Most of them had severe comorbid conditions like diabetes, hypertension, asthma, kidney disorder, TB and cancer.
In a twitter reaction to TOI’s post, 80 messages and several e-mails were received from various parts of Vidarbha. Some of the patients were eager to share their experiences with names and details. Many expressed willingness to donate plasma too. They had been asked to share experiences of recovered patients who were on ventilator, oxygen support, had pneumonia and still recovered from Covid-19.
TOI also spoke to doctors in government and private hospitals who nursed these patients back from ICU, NIV or ventilators BiPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure). Being a tertiary health care centre in central India, Nagpur had the highest number of critical and serious patients of Covid-19 and accounted for the highest number of patients saved from critically ill stage. Nagpur has saved more than 1,500 patients so far.
“We have definitely saved many serious patients and prevented the death tally from going up in Nagpur. This effort hardly gets highlighted. Survivor patients and their relatives know the efforts done by our doctors,” said Dr Avinash Gawande, medical superintendent of the GMCH, Nagpur.
As young resident doctors are in the frontline of treatment, TOI spoke to their representatives too. “It pains us a lot when a patient in our ward succumbs. We follow all protocols and try to save lives till last moment. Hundreds of patients have been saved from critical condition and severe infection so far,” said Dr Mukul Deshpande of Central MARD.
Private Covid hospitals in city also cater to serious patients in Nagpur as well as Vidarbha. Wockhardt was the first private hospital to start Covid-19 services. “Out of the more than 400 patients we have treated, only 9% had mild infection. More than 57% cases were of moderate level of infection where patients needed oxygen and antivirals while 34% cases were severe who required NIV or ventilators and essentially patients who were in the ICU,” informed an official from the management.