KOLKATA: A young woman who spent a hundred days on ventilation and won her battle against severe health complications at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital is all set to go home minus the several tubes and the probes that had been a part of her system for more than three months.
Thirty-four-year-old Moumita Mali, however, was not infected by Covid but suffered a miscarriage at home that had led to serious complications forcing her on to life support. The homemaker from Bhadrakhali was rushed to the obstetrics and gynaecology department on March 11 with abdomen pain and vaginal bleeding. She had a history of spontaneous abortion. Doctors at the department immediately conducted an ERPC (evacuation of retained products of conception) under general anaesthesia, a procedure to remove pregnancy tissues from the womb after miscarriage.
Further evaluation found the patient was severely infected (sepsis) by then and had multiple organ dysfunctions, including acute kidney failure. Doctors also found that she had severe pneumonia, causing acute respiratory failure. Mali was shifted to the hospital’s critical care unit (CCU) and was put on ventilator on March 11 itself.
“She started recovering from kidney failure after 13 sessions of dialysis. But the ventilation had to be continued due to intra-tracheal bleeding issues from formation of granulation tissue in the trachea and non-resolving pneumonia,” said CCU physician professor Sugata Dasgupta who heads the CCU.
Due to the complex condition of the patient, apart from the CCU team under Dasgupta and gynaecology & obstetrics team headed by gynaecologist Aparna Mondal, the treatment called for the involvement of an ENT team led by Indranath Kundu and anaesthesiologist Rajib Ganguly.
Repeated endoscopic and open ENT surgeries were done under ventilation to manage the tracheal problem (granulation tissue and bleeding) and the tracheostomy issues. The patient had also developed deep vein thrombosis in the legs that complicated the anticoagulation treatment issues as at the same time there were bleeding issues from the trachea (airway).
Ventilation continued while the patient underwent repeated imagings, multiple ENT surgeries and management of repeated secondary infections caused by prolonged ventilation. The perseverance by the medical team finally brought cheers. Doctors started the procedure of waning her out of ventilation and tracheostomy in a graded manner on June 21.
“I had given up hope. The doctors, specially Saugata Dasgupta and his team at the CCU, were so patient and gave all their efforts to give my wife back to me. I am indebted,” said husband Abhijit Mali, a fish vendor.
