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This is an archive article published on April 19, 2020

Pune: Every patient at Sassoon hospital being closely monitored, says DMER director

 DMER director says home-quarantine of co-morbid patients will bring death rate at hospital down.

Sixteen new cases threaten Haryana’s hopes to relax lockdown curbs in ‘green zones’ “Each and every patient at Sassoon hospital is being monitored closely by a team of doctors…I am sure the death rate at the hospital will soon come down,” said Dr Lahane, who has been acclaimed for holding surgical camps in remotest part of the state.

Dr Tatyarao Lahane, the director of Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) and state’s top medical expert, on Sunday said all patients at Sassoon General Hospital – including the high risk, co-morbid ones – were being monitored closely. He said he was confident that the death rate at the city’s biggest government hospital due to COVID-19 would soon come down.

“Each and every patient at Sassoon hospital is being monitored closely by a team of doctors…I am sure the death rate at the hospital will soon come down,” said Dr Lahane, who has been acclaimed for holding surgical camps in remotest part of the state.

Dr Lahane and another top medical expert Dr Subash Salukhe, chairman of the Communicable Diseases Prevention and Control Technical Committee, were asked by the state government for their guidance to handle the situation at the hospital after transferring Sassoon’s dean Dr Ajay Chandanwale amidst growing criticism over rising death of COVID-19 patients. Doctors, nurses and other staff at the hospital had staged a protest, demanding his reinstatement.

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“I and Dr Chandanwale got along very well… In the current crisis, I was in support of Dr Chandanwale. I wanted him to continue, but that did not happen… He led a good team, which put in its best efforts in handling the COVID-19 challenge,” Dr Lahane said.

Explaining the initial steps taken to curb the death rate at Sassoon, Dr Lahane said, “We have formed a team of doctors and are taking review of each and every patient twice a day.”

The new team faces a difficult challenge at Sassoon, which, in the past few days, had been reporting at least two to three deaths every day. However, Dr Lahane sounded confident about bringing the death rate down through the measures his team has initiated. “I am in constant touch with the medical team and will visit the hospital in the next two days,” he said.

The high death rate at Sassoon is being attributed to the co-morbidity, meaning preexisting illnesses among patients who have contracted coronavirus.

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Stating that there was need to identify and treat co-morbid patients on priority, Dr Lahane said if local civic bodies helped in identifying and getting early treatment for such patients, it will help in bringing down the death rate. Of the 39 deaths analysed at Sassoon, 37 were co-morbid patients, highlighting the danger of coronavirus among such patients. Statewide, among the 187 deaths related to COVID-19 that were analysed, 82 per cent were co-morbid patients.

On whether there was a need for government directive to home quarantine co-morbid patients, Dr Lahane said there was no need for a separate directive as the ICMR has already issued a directive on the same. “The home-quarantine of co-morbid patients can be done by civic bodies. ICMR has already issued guidelines in this regard. It should be followed by urban local bodies,” he said.

Dr Pavan Salve, the health chief of Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, said they were exploring the possibility of home-quarantine of co-morbid patients who were in high risk group. Pointing out that identifying co-morbid patients involved a big task, Dr Salave said, “Civic staff have their limitations… they need the help of volunteers, college students and office-bearers of residential societies.”

Pune Municipal Commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad said identifying and treating co-morbid patients is the primary focus. “PMC will do its best in this regard,” he said.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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