Hyderabad: In these bleak times of Covid-19 pandemic across the country, which has impacted the lives of everyone in numerous ways, senior joint replacement surgeon from Hyderabad and an acclaimed health communicator, Dr. A V Gurava Reddy has urged people to ‘be positive and don’t get Covid-19 positive’.
The Managing Director of Sunshine Hospitals, while interacting with Telangana Today, appealed to people that they should not lose faith in the private health care sector, which has come under a lot of criticism during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
“Please don’t demonize doctors and private hospitals because we are here to serve you and save precious lives. There will be isolated unsavory incidents in every sector and healthcare sector is also no exception. However, please don’t generalize it. If everybody is aware and takes proper precautions, I am sure we will win this battle against Covid-19,” Dr. Reddy said.
When the outbreak started shaping as a pandemic, I realised the dire need of education and awareness about SARS-CoV-2 virus and the Covid-19 disease among the general public. So we started focussing on communication and in the process I have done almost 20 to 25 lectures and public awareness videos, which have gone viral on YouTube. During the lockdown, I had spent long hours trying to instil confidence and faith among the general public.
I roped in celebrities and other well-known personalities from all walks of life so that people can see them talking about the disease, which translates into building confidence in the community. We received a lot of appreciation from people who listened to us through these videos.
We were contacted by the Union Minister of Health and senior officials from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare who appreciated our initiative. In fact, our awareness programmes also attracted a lot of attention from All India Radio (AIR), New Delhi, who invited us to talk to them.
Novel concepts to treat Covid patients
We have so far managed to provide treatment to 2,000 Covid-19 positive patients at Sunshine Hospitals with hardly three per cent of death rate, which is a very good standard. We have introduced novel concepts while providing treatment to Covid-19 patients.
Guardian Consultants
We focussed on the importance of having good communication with the patients and that’s why we came up with the concept of Guardian Consultants. Due to the contagious nature of the Covid-19, almost all the health care workers have to wear PPE kits while extending treatment to patients.
We realised that the patients and their relatives are unable to connect or communicate properly with doctors who are always sporting a PPE. Even doctors stationed in the ICU are unable to communicate properly with relatives of the patients because they need to focus on providing quality health care to other admitted patients.
To have a proper communication channel, we appointed other senior doctors in the hospitals as Guardian Consultants, who acted as a conduit between relatives and patients. On a daily basis, at least twice or thrice, the senior doctors communicated with the relatives of the patients.
Guardian Managers
We also appointed Guardian Managers, who took care of the non-clinical needs of the Covid-19 positive patients and their relatives. Positive patients at Sunshine Hospitals always had access to a phone and the Guardian Managers consistently communicated with them on the phone. Patients were allowed to get access to home-cooked food and if need be even order food from outside through Guardian Managers.
We also printed booklets related to admission and discharge, which clearly gave directions to the patients and their relatives on the treatment and engagement protocols of Covid-19 cases at Sunshine Hospitals. The booklets also contained FAQs aimed at providing vital information to patients and their relatives.
We always wanted to have proper communication channels with the patients and their relatives, in addition to having sound treatment protocols. That’s the reason why, the effort went into ensuring proper communication channels between patients, relatives and the hospital.
Risk allowance to Covid soldiers
We ensured that health care workers from other departments in our hospital are also involved in providing treatment to Covid-19 positive patients. We appointed them as Covid Soldiers to discharge their duties in the Covid wards and provided additional financial benefits in the form of risk allowance.
The idea was to inculcate a sense of self-respect among them and make them feel proud of their contributions in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. We also welcomed novel treatment techniques for Covid-19 by setting-up a plasma bank, which was beneficial to a number of Covid-19 patients.
On criticism of private hospitals
I personally feel the criticism of private hospitals as very unfortunate. There have been instances where we went all out to ensure Covid-19 patients have recovered from a critical condition. Unfortunately, the same persons who have recovered in our hospital have approached police and courts with flimsy complaints. I have always believed in maintaining transparency and I am even open to hand-over a percentage of our beds to the State government. The authorities are open to appoint special nodal officers and provide treatment to Covid-19 patients in our beds.
Orthopaedic surgeries
Sunshine Hospitals is known for its orthopaedic surgeries and in May we conducted over 100 knee replacement surgeries. However, as cases started to increase and positive patients needed beds, all the elective surgeries like knee replacement surgeries were stopped. We allotted these beds from each wing to Covid-19 patients.
At present, almost 80 per cent of the beds at Sunshine Hospitals are dedicated to Covid patients and we are not conducting any other elective procedures like knee replacement surgeries etc. Priority is to provide immediate treatment to critical Covid-19 patients along with emergency procedures like heart attacks, strokes and trauma cases.
Infrastructure difficulties and shortage of ventilator beds
To provide proper facilities to Covid-19 patients, we separated Covid areas and non-Covid areas in our hospitals and established separate outpatient facilities, casualties and Operation Theatres. To make this happen, a lot of work went into taking-up infrastructural changes in the hospital. That is the reason why we were able to provide treatment to 2,000 positive patients.
People must realise that once patients are put on ventilator support, it takes anywhere between two weeks and three weeks for them to completely recover. For patients with moderate Covid symptoms, we can adjust and add one more bed in a room but with ventilators, this is not possible. That’s the reason why almost all the dedicated ventilators beds in private hospitals are filled in Hyderabad. We ourselves purchased 10 ventilators and sourced another 10 ventilators from our hospital in Bhubaneswar in Odisha.
On e-Consultations
Online consultations have played a vital role in ensuring chronic patients continue to get access to speciality doctors. On average, I personally provide virtual consultations to 50 patients in a day. It remains to be seen whether this trend of increased usage of online consultations will continue after the Covid-19 pandemic.
I think patients would want to physically meet a doctor, but at the same time, I am also sure that there are plenty of patients who will hesitate to go to a hospital due to the risk of getting infections in a hospital unless there is a health emergency. I believe that online consultations will remain relevant even after this pandemic.
On Stay Home initiative
We are planning to introduce the unique concept of STAY (Sunshine Team At Your) Home initiative. The idea is to take facilities like X-ray and other diagnostic services like blood tests etc and even doctors, nurses and other health care workers at the doorstep of the patients. This is specifically aimed at those patients who find difficult to travel and come to a hospital.
Where we are headed with Covid-19 in India?
I am expecting and hoping that we would be able to control the pandemic in another three months in the country. I personally feel, the country already has hit a peak and the downward trend of the plateau has already started. The drop in numbers will at least take three months for the entire country to get out of this pandemic. I am also expecting that by September ending, cases of Covid-19 will go down in both the Telugu-speaking States. Some form of Covid-19 vaccine is expected to hit the Indian market by this year-end and by that time, I am also sure the coronavirus pandemic will end on its own.
On learning from Covid-19 pandemic
The Covid-19 pandemic has taught great lessons not only to the health care community but also to the general public. Even if the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak reduces on its own, the experiences gained from this disease should stand the general public and the governments in good stead. Among the most important lessons is the use of masks, following the norms of physical distancing and hand hygiene. These suggestions may seem very ordinary but they are very important to beat Covid-19 epidemic.
