Source: HealthWorld
More than 4,300 healthcare workers including doctors and nurses have been given HCQ to help them prevent the infection as there are high chances of them getting infected while treating Covid patients.
JAIPUR: Sawai Man Singh Hospital was the first to use hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and anti-HIV drugs — Lopinavir and Ritonavir — to treat the first few Covid-19 patients besides using the combination as a preventive drug on others.
More than 4,300 healthcare workers including doctors and nurses have been given HCQ to help them prevent the infection as there are high chances of them getting infected while treating Covid patients.
“As far as prophylaxis is concerned, more than 4,300 doctors and health works were given HCQ as approved by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) out of which around 45 health persons tested positive and recovered later,” said Dr Sudhir Bhandari, principal and controller, SMS Medical College
The hospital claimed that preventive treatment approach at SMS Hospital has been very rewarding and results of these have been shared with ICMR.
“We have used these drugs with perfect scientific background and proven efficacy in SARS Cov-2 Infection and SMS Medical College created a bridge between point of no specific treatment till the specific drug treatment is established. All these drugs were part of solidarity trial by WHO of which SMS Hospital is a centre,” said Bhandari.
SMS Hospital was declared as non-Covid hospital on June 1. But before that, it emerged as a role model of management of Covid patients. From the very beginning, 300 ICU beds and more than thousand IPD beds were dedicated for Covid patients. A separate Covid OPD and observation wards for suspects was created at Charak Bhawan. Also, 28 wards were created for Covid patients of different categories. For critically ill patients, Infectious Disease Hospital (IDH) was fully equipped with ICU facilities.
During the peak of the pandemic, average 500 plus patients were admitted to SMS from asymptomatic category to severe category.
Number of faculty was put on floor duty, which included consultants from the department of medicine and anaesthesia. Resident doctors were doing duty in each shift and hundreds of nursing, paramedics and technicians were on round-the-clock duty.
Dr Bhandari, who headed the Covid-19 management programme, said like any best centre in the world, the investigations of patients included HRCT Chest, CT pulmonary angiography, ultrasonography of lungs and echo with dopler state was made available at SMS Hospital. “The CT Pulmonary Angiography of Covid-19 patients gave us new insight of pulmonary thrombus being also a cause of critical complications in patients. SMS is geared up with most advanced investigative facilities like assessment of cytokine storm,” he said. All critical patients were also assessed for clotting disorder by D-dimer and many other tests.
How SMS Hospital became learning ground
Covid Plasma Therapy and Monoclonal Antibodies to critical ill patients with very good results
Participation of each and every faculty member, resident doctors, nursing and paramedics who wholeheartedly were committed for best of care
Each and every patient with or without co-morbid conditions was discussed, their management was planned and close monitoring done
At investigation front, in March first week initial samples of Covid-19 were send to Pune and today SMS has acquired capacity of doing 3,500 tests per day
SMS Medical College has done over 1,35,000 RT-PCR tests and the capacity per day will be 7,000 in the next two days
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