Life of a Home Care Physician
April was a chaotic month. What we saw in the past four weeks was no less than an episode of a web series that documented a myriad of emotions, mainly on the sad side of human life.
Delhi became the COVID capital of the World with almost 40,000 positive cases of COVID-19 infection on a daily basis. The positivity rate crossed 30% and it resulted in a catastrophic disaster. The emergency rooms of all hospitals were choked with the rain of COVID patients, it was a healthcare disaster.
Overburdened front-line workers and little room to accommodate everyone, a dire situation turned up of lack of oxygen supplies that killed hundreds of innocent lives.
“I must have said, No and Sorry to so many of the people who approached me in the last month”, says Dr. Charu Dutt Arora, a Home Care-Intensive care Covid expert physician.
Many people think that Home Isolation just means monitoring Spo2 (Oxygen saturation) for mild patients at home. However, this time we witnessed that Dr. Charu with his team managed more than 100 critical patients at home.
“We tried to treat these patients, manage their vitals, provide complete nursing support, and successfully avoided more than 95% of these to require hospital admission”, says Dr. Charu with a humbling smile.
One of his patients was Mrs. Thapar, a senior citizen living in the affluent residential society of Faridabad. When she found on the 20th of April that she is COVID positive, she isolated herself and consulted Dr. Arora. But not did she know that it would be less than 48 hours that her oxygen levels would start to fall and lead to breathlessness. “My aim is not just to provide Oxygen support at home, rather avoiding the situation to turn into Cytokine storm and take care of her blood coagulation issues”, comments Dr. Charu on this particular case. The lady’s CT scan severity score was 18/25 (severe pneumonia suggesting almost 60-65% of lung involvement). With an army of nursing support, continuous oxygen management, and skillful treatment, she came out as a COVID survivor last week.
Home ICU has proven to be a boon bridge between a patient’s home and hospital. It has proven to be a successful healthcare vertical that has decreased the load on hospitals and provided comfort and personalized care to critical patients suffering from COVID.
Another successful case managed by him through HOME ICU set up is of Mr. Singh, a young 34-year-old man in Palwal. He was on NIV (non-invasive ventilator) support for more than two weeks and with the holistic medical approach, he met Dr. Arora yesterday in his follow up the outpatient room.
“Working 16-18 hours daily has been a very tough ordeal, where I go home just to sleep and have my breakfast and leave for work. But managing patients remotely and planning their treatment for successful outcomes takes care of all my stress. I believe strongly in the nursing staff who follow the guidelines meticulously and that’s what does wonders in the end. It’s all about teamwork, after all”, adds Dr. Arora.
Dr. Charu Dutt Arora is currently working as Chief Consultant- Critical Care and Home Care for HOUSEPITAL Home Health Care Services.