Ranchi: Hours after the medical board formed to monitor the health and treatment of state education minister Jagarnath Mahato ended on Saturday afternoon, chief minister Hemant Soren asked senior officials and to explore options of shifting him to a higher medical centre for treatment. Mahato was diagnosed with Covid about three weeks ago and he continues to remain in a critical condition at the private hospital to which he was shifted to from Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (Rims).
Chief secretary Sukhdev Singh, the CM’s principal secretary Rajiv Arun Ekka and Medica hospital medical director Dr Vijay Mishra attended Hemat’s high-level meeting to decide Mahto’s future course of treatment. Earlier in the day, principal secretary to CM Rajiv Arun Ekka reached Medica to take stock of Mahto’s health. He later held talks with the members of the medical board.
Talking to TOI, Mishra said: “We are in touch with a team of doctors from a hospital in Chennai that specialises in Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) treatment. The team will visit the minister at our hospital on Sunday. A decision on whether to shift him to Chennai will be taken after a thorough assessment of his condition on life-support system.”
Mishra added, “EXMO is a life support technique that gives prolonged cardiac and respiratory support to persons whose heart and lungs are unable to provide an adequate amount of gas exchange or perfusion to sustain life. As Mahto’s condition remains critical, the visiting team will observe him for six to eight hours. If they find it suitable, he might be shifted (to Chennai) on Sunday or Monday. We have an ECMO machine at our hospital and we have made necessary arrangements to administer this treatment to the minister.”
Hospital sources said a team from Medanta Hospital, Gurugram, was scheduled to visit Mahto on Saturday afternoon, but it failed to turn up. The members held an online meeting with the treating doctors and suggested Mahto be shifted to a lungs transplant centre at the earliest.
“The experts from Medanta said Mahto must be put on ECMO treatment so that he can be shifted to a higher centre that specialises in lung transplants as he remains critical and his oxygenation level continues to be totally dependent on non-invasive ventilation support on a high flow oxygen supply,” said a doctor in the knowhow of things on condition of anonymity.