A 55-year-old man with chronic liver disease and severe cough was recently rushed to the intensive care unit of the Covid-19 hospital in Karnataka’s Bagalkot district. As he tested positive and his condition deteriorated, doctors feared that he might succumb to the pandemic just like the hospital's first critical patient who was admitted in March. This man, however, survived. A team of specialist doctors from Bengaluru, who are part of the state’s Tele ICU initiative, helped doctors in Bagalkot treat the patient. “The patient was a former alcoholic and was in a critical state,” said Dr Chandrakant Javali, senior specialist physician in Bagalkot. “But Tele ICU helped save the patient. I feel I would not have lost the first patient if Tele ICU had been there earlier.”
For doctors in peripheral hospitals who battle limited infrastructure and poor access to treatment protocols, Tele ICU has been a boon. Set up in mid-April, Tele ICU is an online facility to treat critically ill patients in remote areas with the help of off-site experts and technology. The state government has roped in two private hospitals—Columbia Asia and Manipal Hospitals in Bengaluru—to act as the nerve centre of 29 district hospitals designated as Covid-19 hospitals. Tele ICU has pulmonologists, intensivists and critical care experts conducting e-rounds to monitor critical cases in remote areas twice a day.
Karnataka has had 1,568 high-risk patients; 749 of them have been discharged and 755 are being treated. Out of the 207 deaths reported till June 15, eight patients were brought dead. A good number of cases were late referrals from private hospitals.
This story is from the July 12, 2020 edition of THE WEEK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the July 12, 2020 edition of THE WEEK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Divides And Dividends
Contrasting narratives on the scrapping of Article 370 define the elections in Jammu and Kashmir
Playing it cool
Everybody knows what 420 means in the Indian context. But in American parlance it is something very different: four-twenty or 4/20 or April 20 denotes cannabis celebration; its cultural references are rooted in the hippie culture of the 1960s and 1970s.
The heroine's new clothes
Who else but Sanjay Leela Bhansali could bring on a wardrobe reset like the one in his just-dropped period piece—an eight-part Netflix series called Heeramandi?
AI & I
Through her book Code Dependent—shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction—Madhumita Murgia gives voice to the voiceless multitudes impacted by artificial intelligence
Untold tales from war
Camouflaged is a collection of 10 deeply researched stories, ranging from the world wars to the 26/11 terror attacks
Hair force
Sheetal Mallar, in her photobook Braided, uses hair as a metaphor to tell a story that is personal yet universal
THE WHITE TIGER GAVE ME CONFIDENCE IN MY ABILITIES
The first time Adarsh Gourav made an impression was in Ramin Bahrani's 2021 film The White Tiger, a gripping adaptation of Aravind Adiga's Booker-winning novel.
The art of political protest
The past doesn’t always remain in the past. Sometimes, it emerges in the present, reminding us about the universality and repetitiveness of the human experience. Berlin’s George Grosz Museum, a tiny gem, is a startling reminder that modern political and social ills are not modern. Grosz lived through World Wars I and II, shining a torch into the heart of darkness in high-ranking men and women—who were complicit in the collapse of the world as they knew it.
REFUELLING DYING SATELLITES
A Chennai company is making waves in the world of space tech startups
DIVERSITY IN UNITY
THE SOUTH ASIAN COMMUNITY IN THE US HAS SEVERAL THINGS IN COMMON, BUT WHEN IT COMES TO THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS, THERE ARE WIDELY DIFFERING OPINIONS AND FEELINGS