BHUBANESWAR
An 85-year-old woman weighing just 22 kg in Odisha’s Jajpur district has recovered from COVID-19, raising hopes for others fighting the disease in the State. Doctors and paramedical staff in the city’s SUM COVID Hospital were elated when she walked out of the hospital, holding her tiny grandchild in her arm.
The elderly woman hails from Katikata panchayat, which was declared a containment zone, in Jajpur. She had remained with her family from March 22 to April 30. She is estimated to have come into contact with another COVID-19 infected person between March 29 and April 25.
As part of the State government’s sample collection from contacts of the infected person, samples were drawn from her. The woman tested positive on April 30 and was shifted to SUM COVID Hospital on the same day.
‘No comorbidity’
“She did not have any comorbidity factors except having age-related issues. She was asymptomatic for the last three days before her discharge. Competent doctors kept her under focused observation for 12 days,” said Pusparaj Samantsinghar, Medical Superintendent, SUM COVID Hospital.
Fourteen persons, including two three-year-old children from Jajpur district, were discharged on Tuesday.
One of them was a 60-year-old diabetic who was unaware about his condition when he was admitted, hospital sources said.
“He was diagnosed with diabetes in the hospital itself. The treatment also helped his pre-prandial blood sugar level to steeply reduce from 400 to 100 when he was released,” said hospital authorities.
Dr. Samantsinghar said, “At a time when people aged over 60 years are believed to be very vulnerable to the virus attack, the confidence of our doctors, nurses and other paramedic staff soared following the recovery of the octogenarian patient.”
The SUM COVID Hospital, set up in collaboration with the State government and supported by the public sector Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL), has a total of 525 beds, including 25 beds in the ICU.
Separate floors
The four-storied complex housing the hospital has separate floors for treatment of the positive cases and those kept in isolation. Asymptomatic and seriously ill patients were also being treated in separate places.
As many as 82 doctors, drawn from the departments of medicine, paediatrics, anaesthesia, pulmonary medicine, general surgery, orthopaedics, psychiatry, ENT and ophthalmology, have been deployed in the hospital, as have been 264 nurses.
Recently, the SOA Deemed University, of which SUM COVID Hospital is a part, became the first private medical college in the State to be chosen as a testing centre for the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus. Tests will be conducted in the Molecular RNA Virology Laboratory of the institute.
