Patient with respiratory distress passes away in Dimapur; tests negative for Covid-19 on TrueNat

Our Correspondent
Kohima, Aug. 17 (EMN): The patient, whose video clip that was reportedly taken at the District Hospital Dimapur and has been circulated on social media, passed away on Sunday morning. The Covid-19 test of the deceased on TrueNat returned negative.

According to a source, the patient’s SpO2 (saturation of peripheral oxygen) rate was at just 36% at the time of reaching the hospital, at around 3.15 am on August 16. The patient succumbed to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) at a ward, three hours after being admitted to the facility.

The source informed that the patient was referred by a private hospital with his chief complaints being coughing up blood and difficulty in breathing.

A team of three medical personnel comprising a doctor, a hospital attendant and a nurse assigned for emergency duty, tried to stabilise the condition of the patient and revive him with all the available resources at the hospital, but the patient succumbed to his ailments.

According to a source, the doctor attending the patient informed that they gave the latter ‘all the life saving medicines and oxygen as well’, but he passed away owing to his critical ailing condition.

However, the patient’s companions told the doctor that he never had any history of breathing problems nor any case of TB, and it was his first time coughing up blood. “He was monitored and his mouth cleaned; his pulse examined and his chest was also massaged while trying to bring up his oxygen level,” it was said.

Four oxygen cylinders had been utilised to save the patient. It was informed that the first oxygen cylinder was half-empty as ‘it was used up very fast’. Likewise, the second cylinder was also emptied soon as they were trying to “deliver oxygen to the patient at a high flow”.

According to hospital sources, the doctor and the two other staff, on learning that the third oxygen cylinder was running also out, shifted the patient to the isolation ward. The three medical personnel attending the patient were ‘unable to go out to non-Covid places of the hospital in PPE to collect spare oxygen cylinders’.

The doctor, who was documenting the patient’s requirements, had to remove her PPE to go out of the emergency room and find the fourth oxygen cylinder from another ward, it was informed, adding that the patient died ‘despite of the nasal cannula being fixed with the fourth oxygen cylinder at around 6 am’.

“A total of four oxygen cylinders were used for him in a span of three hours,” the source said.

On arrival at the hospital, the doctor had brought up the patient’s SpO2 level to 75%, and he was ‘able to undergo the TrueNat test for Covid-19 examination’. His Covid-19 test report returned negative later.

The Covid-19 test was required as per the SOP before admitting any patient to ICU at the district hospital.

The source said that a person would choke if throat sample is extracted with his oxygen saturation level at only about 35%.

“His condition was very serious. His OPD card (issued by the private hospital) showed only 40% SpO2. It’s almost like 2/3 of his oxygen level is less already,” the source said.

The source admitted that there were some time lapses as shown in the videos, while arranging the oxygen cylinders for the patient but the doctor had “prognosticated the deceased’s close ones ahead that his condition was already in critical condition”.

Reportedly the private hospital had “verbally told” the close ones of the deceased to refer him to the district hospital after giving him ‘some fluid, injectables while nebulisation and chest x-ray were conducted on him’.

The patient’s SpO2 was at 40% in the hospital, but it came down to 36% by the time he reached the district hospital, said the source.

According to a doctor, if a person’s SpO2 level is below 90%, then his/her case is already critical.