In a first, two COVID-19 patients from Padarayanapura, a containment zone, gave birth through C-Section at the Emergency and Trauma Care Centre on Victoria Hospital premises on Friday night and Saturday morning.
While one delivered a healthy baby girl on Friday night, the other delivered two pre-term babies at 34th week on Saturday morning.
One of the women had tested positive during random testing and the other was detected at Vani Vilas Hospital when she had gone for ante-natal check-up. As she was from the containment zone and a neighbour of a positive patient, her swab was tested and it was positive.
As Vani Vilas is not a designated COVID ward and as she had tested positive, she was shifted to the COVID facility in the Emergency and Trauma Care Centre. It turns out that the woman had also visited a BBMP Maternity Hospital on Mysuru Road before she was tested and 36 women who had waited with her in a queue have now been quarantined.
At the Trauma Centre, hospital authorities realigned the nursing and Group ‘D’ staff and gave them guidance on infection-control practices. “The Septic OT was converted into a labour room and the C-Section was done in the Major Operation Theatre on the third floor,” sources said.
“Although newborns are usually negative, the protocol is to test them after 24 hours of birth and again at 48 hours. They have been separated from the mothers and kept under isolation. While the pre-term babies may require longer stay at the hospital, the other baby (depending on the test report) will be given to a care-giver or family member as the mother has to stay in hospital till she tests negative,” said a senior doctor. Both the new mothers are asymptomatic.
Meanwhile, there was panic in Vani Vilas Hospital on Saturday as postgraduate students, resident doctors, nurses and other paramedical staff were worried that they may have been exposed to the virus as the positive case was admitted in the isolation ward in the hospital before she was tested.
Demanding PPE kits and other COVID precautionary measures, the staff staged a snap protest and met the BMCRI Dean and Director C.R. Jayanthi. “Their demand was that Vani Vilas should be allowed to treat only COVID negative patients or the hospital should be turned into a COVID facility. But that is not possible as we cannot turn away poor patients irrespective of the area they come from,” the Dean told The Hindu .
“With no other such government speciality facility in the city, patients come to Vani Vilas as the last resort. Even during this pandemic, a record 1,200 deliveries were conducted in this hospital last month. We have told the staff that patients cannot be turned away. All required personal protection equipment will be made available to them,” she said.
