RANCHI: Purushottam Kumar, 34, had never thought that he will have to spend more than two months in hospital after he tested positive for Covid-19 on April 22.
But as he suffered hard realities, Kumar gave up his thoughts to return to his family where his wife and two young sons are waiting.
Doctors at the district hospital here diagnosed him with 85% lung damage and Kumar had experienced near-death experience thrice at the hospital.
Now, he is declared Covid-free and discharged from the hospital on Saturday.
Thanking the collective effort of the team of doctors at Ranchi sadar hospital, Kumar said if it wasn’t for the support and care of the doctors and medical staff of the hospital, he wouldn’t have made it.
“I did not have money to afford a costly and prolonged treatment at a private hospital.
In fact, I was not prepared for a situation like this.
It is because of the Ranchi district hospital that I have been blessed with a second chance in life.” According to hospital sources Kumar, a native of Nawada in Bihar, was admitted to a city-based private hospital here on April 30 after being referred by doctors from Nawada.
His condition was already critical when he reached Ranchi with a CO-RADS (Covid-19 Reporting and Data System) score of 17/25 (The higher the score, the worse is the lung damage).
He got a bed at the district hospital on May 2.
Kumar was treated by a medical team of doctors, which included anaesthetists Dr Pankaj and Dr Neeraj along with Dr Anshuman, Dr Rajkumar, Dr Pavan and Dr Ajit who monitored his health throughout his stay.
“One week after Kumar’s admission, we had come across a situation where he had started gasping for breath in the early hours and we had to manage him remotely by instructing the duty doctor over the phone,” said one of the doctors who treated him.
Talking to TOI, Dr Pavan said, “We discharged the patient only after his CO-RADS score came below 12/25 and after consulting a pulmonologist.” Dr Ajit added, “We started administering him Remdesivir along with other medication.
In the meantime, we had to shift him to non-invasive ventilation support as his condition deteriorated.
I am very delighted at his recovery and the credit goes to ventilator technicians Nandini, Gunja and Vinita who used to monitor him overnight on several days.” Nandini said: “There were times when we thought that we would lose the patient but it was his will power and co-operation that he survived even after being put on invasive ventilator support thrice.
After his situation started improving, we also assisted him in physiotherapy so that he could recover fast.” Professor of the critical care and head of Rims trauma centre, Dr Pradip Bhhatacharya, said the Covid-19 virus damages the lungs immediately after infecting an individual and the path to recovery varies from person to person.
“Basically, it is only damage-control process as soon after a patient gets infected The lungs are damaged in the first five days of the infection and we work on rebuilding it with medication as well as various kinds of support like invasive and non-invasive ventilators.
Many a time, patients with low immunity succumb to the infection.
However, the patient, in this case, was comparatively young and his body responded well to the treatment.”