A 61-year-old ear, nose, throat (ENT) surgeon from Mumbai succumbed to the SARS-CoV-2 early on Monday at the SL Raheja Hospital in Mahim. Despite his co-morbidities, Dr. Chittaranjan Bhave had resumed practice in May to help people during the ongoing emergency.
He tested positive on May 19 and got hospitalised, but his condition deteriorated gradually, and he breathed his last at 2.45 a.m. on Monday. He is the seventh doctor in the city to die of COVID-19, including five alternative medicine practitioners.
A diabetic, Dr. Bhave had also undergone an angioplasty procedure eight years ago. “He had stayed at home during most of the lockdown. But with the ongoing crisis and government pleas for doctors to start their practice, he decided to slowly resume work last month,” said his wife, Sujata.
He was an alumni of the G.S. Medical College attached to KEM Hospital. While he had his private clinic in Mahim, he also consulted at SL Raheja and Maru Hospital in Parel. “We were closely following his health condition over the past several days. His death came as a shock to all of us,” said ENT surgeon Dr. Samir Bhargava, who is the national president of the Association of Otolaryngologists of India.
Dr. Bhave had last worked at Raheja Hospital on March 3. “He had started seeing patients at his clinic and at the Maru Hospital last month,” said Dr. Sanjay Gala, who was his co-surgeon in an emergency procedure that they carried out on May 15, two days before he developed symptoms.
“It was a patient with facial palsy. The patient did not have COVID-19. It is unlikely that the surgery triggered the chain of infection,” said Dr. Gala. He continued to follow up with the patient, who still has no infection. However, an operation theatre assistant who was in the team tested positive almost two weeks after the procedure. “We had taken all the necessary precautions while operating. Even while consulting patients, Dr. Bhave would wear the necessary protective gear like a mask and gloves,” he said.
SL Raheja Hospital’s chief executive officer Dr. Hiren Ambegaonkar, who was Dr. Bhave’s batch mate, said he was doing fine in the first few days but started to get breathless from May 23. “He developed acute respiratory distress syndrome. We shifted him to the intensive care unit and put him on high-flow oxygen and prone ventilation. His renal function shut down, for which we also started him on dialysis,” said Dr. Ambegaonkar. Despite all interventions, Dr. Bhave’s condition did not improve.
There were reports about Dr. Bhave not finding a hospital bed in time, but his family denied the allegations. Dr. Bhave’s wife and daughter have also tested positive and are in home quarantine.
