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In Bengal, man recovers from Covid-19 after 38 days on ventilator
A statement issued by AMRI hospital on Friday said: “[Mukherjee] has created a record of sorts in India by being the first patient of COVID-19, to have defeated the virus despite being on ventilator for 38 days.”
Nitaidas Mukherjee, a resident of south Kolkata, may well be one among the over 17,800 persons cured of Covid-19 till date in the country, but his doctors term his recovery a miracle. The 52-year-old was kept on a ventilator for 38 days before he returned home on Friday, free of the coronavirus.
Doctors at AMRI in Dhakuria where Mukherjee was admitted, said that it was a remarkable feat, as a Covid-19 patient on a ventilator is not considered to have a high chance of survival.
“This is my second life you can say. Without the doctors I would have been dead by now. They are the actual heroes,” Mukherjee, who is still frail and felt too weak to speak over phone, said.
Mukherjee first began to exhibit symptoms of lower respiratory tract infection in mid-March. Having suffered a bout of pneumonia in 2017, his family comprising his wife, Aparajita, his 75-year-old mother and septuagenarian aunt thought that his bouts of cough were par for the course. However, it’s when he developed fever that his family decided to have him tested for Covid-19.
One of the guidelines for testing issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) at the time was that a person could only be tested if they had travelled abroad. “We didn’t have any travel history. But as the symptoms were similar to that of Covid-19, so we decided to take him to a private hospital on March 29. As his condition deteriorated he was put on ventilator the same night. The next day his test results came positive and his battle with death started,” said Aparajita (39).
As his condition worsened doctors performed a procedure called tracheostomy, which involves making an incision in the throat to open a direct airway to the trachea for ease of breathing.
Coronavirus disease is a type of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). Normally, ARDS is something that happens over time, but with Sars-Cov-2, it’s faster: the lungs get inflamed, and fluid leaks into the alveoli. Doctors typically put patients on ventilators to help them re-oxygenate the bloodstream. In a worst case scenario, a “cytokine storm” is possible: that’s when the body’s white blood cells and other antibodies, produced to fight the viral infection, end up attacking the body’s own cells.
“Doctors had told me that his condition was extremely precarious. But they never lost hope and continued to fight. I was not sure whether I would be able to see him anymore and prayed to God. He is a social worker and runs a NGO. I believe the prayers of all those he had helped in the past worked and helped him to survive,”
A statement issued by AMRI hospital on Friday said: “[Mukherjee] has created a record of sorts in India by being the first patient of COVID-19, to have defeated the virus despite being on ventilator for 38 days.”
“This is indeed a remarkable feat. Staying on ventilation and then returning home is something uncommon,” said Sukumar Mukherjee, one of the doctors in the advisory panel set up chief minister Mamata Banerjee to tackle the state’s response to the pandemic.
