RANCHI: Even as new Covid cases gradually dip, city hospitals are witnessing a rise in the hospitalizations of recovered patients with post-Covid complications.
Leading hospitals in the city said they are now attending people with various ailments, mostly breathing difficulties, which have risen after they recovered from the viral infection.
Talking to TOI, the medical director of Bhagwan Mahaveer Medica Superspeciality Hospital, Dr Vijay Mishra, said, “We are getting patients with severe post-Covid complications and they are complaining about breathing difficulty.
We have also detected cases of aspergillosis — which is a kind of fungal infection in the lungs and around two dozen patients are admitted currently in the ICU of our hospital.
The reason behind these complications is fibrosis in the lungs which worsens the respiratory function, leading to breathing difficulty.” On precautions needed after recovering from Covid, Dr Mishra said: “After discharge, patients should regularly monitor their oxygen saturation and blood sugar apart from looking out for symptoms of influenza like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infections (ILI/SARI).
It will help in the detection of any complication.
People with covid history should immediately reach out to their doctor if they experience any abnormalities in these parameters.” Dr Nishit Kumar, the pulmonologist at Orchid Medical Centre, said he has seen an increase in fungal infection among recovered patients and many are admitted to his hospital.
“Recovered patients are visiting us with different kinds of complications and fungal infection is one of them.
Many have also complained about an acute spike in their blood sugar levels and bacterial infection.” Chairman of Raj Hospitals Yogesh Gambhir, too, confirmed that they are reporting an increase in patients with lung infections and blood coagulation in arteries and veins.
“We have around a dozen patients with such infections in our ICU.
To assist patients discharged from our hospital, our doctors are regularly following up with them.” Nodal officer of the post-Covid clinic at the Ranchi district hospital, Dr Ajit Kumar, said: “Patients visiting our clinic are of two types- one who are psychologically shaken and the other who are developing minor as well as major complications.
Three patients have been admitted to the district hospital, too, after they developed breathing difficulty and symptoms of infection in the salivary gland.
The problem starts when people come with very high blood sugar and blood pressure levels.
Such people are susceptible to heart attacks which might prove fatal.” Assistant professor of Rims cardiology department, Dr Prashant Kumar, said, “We have received a few cases of myocardial infarction (MI) in patients who had a history of Covid infection in the recent past.
People who have been infected by the virus must go for regular testing of their heart and other pathological tests like D-Dimer and CRP so that they could be provided proper management for any cardiac ailments.”