Late admission, comorbidity major challenges: Aurangabad GMCH

Last-minute admissions and co-morbidities are the major challenges the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) here is facing while treating critical coronavirus patients, senior doctors said on Friday. The hospital is treating 164 COVID-19 patients at present, of whom 87 are in critical condition, as per the officials.

According to Dr Kanan Yelikar, the dean, the recovery rate of critical patients at GMCH is 44 per cent and that of non-critical patients is between 54 to 60 per cent. "We see two major challenges if we analyze deaths of COVID-19 patients here," said Dr Meenakshi Bhattacharya, head of the Medicine Department.

"Late admissions are largely being seen since mid-May. They usually come with low oxygen saturation and treating them becomes difficult. People do not notice mild symptoms early on," she told PTI.

"Earlier we used to get two to four positive patients in every fifteen admissions. Now this number has reached eight-ten. Detecting patients at the earliest can save lives," she added. "Another challenge is comorbidity. Lot of patients have uncontrolled blood sugar, blood pressure, kidney trouble and other issues," Bhattacharyra said.

Yelikar said that since April 3, the hospital has treated 447 critical patients. 197 of them were discharged after treatment. 77 per cent of COVID-19 patients who died were above 50 years of age. 33 per cent deaths took place within 24 hours of admission and 52 per cent within 48 hours of admission, she informed.

90 per cent of the patients who died had co-morbidity (existing health conditions), she added. So far, 101 coronavirus patients have died at the hospital.

Talking about pregnant women admitted to hospital, she said, "We have tested 479 pregnant patients till now and of them 53 tested positive. 36 of them delivered babies. The rate of coronavirus infection among pregnant women is 11 per cent." PTI AW KRK KRK.