Festive fervour grips covid patients too

Patients asking for discharge or leaving hospital against doc’s advice

The craving for festivities is not letting covid patients be. Eager to be out of hospital in time for the celebrations, many are asking doctors to either discharge them from hospital, or leaving against the advice of experts.

Hospitals say that over the last two to three days, there has been a 50 per cent rise in the number discharges from their hospitals.

“We are observing a 40-50 per cent increase in discharge of covid patients due to Dasara festivities. Most of the patients are asking for discharge and are leaving even against the advice of doctors by signing the voluntary discharge sheet. A few of the patients have come back too as they felt discomfort at home. We understand that families want to spend the festival together, but it is of paramount importance not to undermine one’s health and take discharge at your own will,” said Dr Suri Raju V, chief urologist and managing director of Regal Hospital.

He said that hospitals will discharge the patient after the observation period and once the patient is doing fine on all the parameters medically. “We would strongly advise patients and their families to think rationally and not emotionally. Discharge against medical advice (AMA), in which a patient chooses to leave the hospital before the treating physician recommends discharge, continues to be a common and vexing problem this festive season,” he said.

At Regal Hospital, the doctor said that they are using non-judgmental, empathetic questioning, wherein physicians can more fruitfully engage patients in a process designed to uncover the unspoken motivations behind a patient’s behaviour.

He said, “Leaving the hospital against the physician’s advice may expose the patient to a risk of an inadequately treated medical problem and result in the need for readmission. The ethical dilemma that this issue raises is conceptually relatively straightforward. Many physicians struggle with the desire to respect the patient’s wishes to leave AMA (in general, the patient’s right to self-determination or autonomy) while attempting to do what they think is best for the patient (to act with beneficence). In practice, managing this issue presents more complications than simply identifying and potentially prioritising the relevant ethical principles.”

Vitals important

Dr Aravinda GM, internal medicine, Manipal Hospital, said, “We have been getting requests for discharge over the last few days. We are discharging patients if they are stable, and if they are young, after day five, if room air saturation is maintained. If viral markers are showing a downward trend, they can be discharged. We only need to explain that if any of the warning symptoms like shortness of breath or fever appear, they must report immediately.”