Lifeline Hospital Research Centre - Our Fight with COVID..
We..
When I say we..
Then it means a large Lifeline Family which encompass 500 members.
Means 500 families who are fighting with COVID, relentlessly, day and night to save our society, our nation and above all humanity..
The year 2020 is going to leave us. History will remember this year of the 21st century for the dreaded COVID pandemic. For us also it will be memorable, as together like an army we fight with Corona. Our family values reach at it's extreme as we were committed to saving each one of us in this war, our fighting spirit remains at its peak and our dedication to serve our society despite all odds remains our priority in this tough time.
From my memories, I am going to share the few moments of the last 10 months of our journey of this difficult path.
It was March 2020, the entire world was in apprehension. After China, it was a long list including France, Italy, Germany, Spain and America who were destroying by COVID and we the people of India were waiting for our number to come. With it's spread and killing impact, we were knowing this fact that very soon we will also be in the same circumstances as these powerful countries.
At this time our Critical Care Incharge Dr Gayatri was relentlessly involved in preparation to fight with this enemy. We were having a keen observation of the pattern of propagation of COVID in India as well as in the world and consistently exploring literature to find out all the latest developments in this new disease.
On 25th March, a nationwide lockdown was announced by our prime minister. For us it was a timeframe, to strengthen our system and basically, this was the main aim of lockdown (preparation before actual encounter).
It was the first time in eastern UP, we started staff training on daily basis way back in March. With the regular follow-up of ICMR guidelines, COVID protocols management guidelines as laid by national, international bodies, we formulate our protocols, with some modifications, keeping in mind the safety as our priority and financial aspect of people of eastern UP as next.
We were pretty sure that virus is not going to come in Azamgarh directly from Wuhan (China), hence we were doing our work following the protocols as laid by the government of India and ICMR routinely till April without doing COVID testing as it was not available also.
Creating holding areas in hospital premises was first time introduced in Azamgarh by Lifeline Hospital.
The use of full PPE as a routine was a big cost factor. To cut down the treatment cost, it was the first time we started using Gown as a basic dress with mask, gloves and face-shield to protect ourselves and full PPE only in high-risk areas from the very beginning. This approach becomes a basic norm, later on for Non-COVID hospitals.
We were among the first few healthcare setups in the country to start the outdoor patient facility in the open area because of COVID that to way back in April instead of closed rooms OPD, and later on, many big corporates hospitals realise it's importance and start doing so.
It was the first time in Azamgarh, we make it a norm of doing CT Thorax since May, as a screening investigation in emergency patients which later on becomes a routine in the rest of the UP.
With the efforts of Dr.Gayatri and Dr.Piyush, we were the first to introduce Intubation bay concept in UP for surgical patients and design our intubation bay to strengthen the safety profile of our doctors and OT staff.
Till May, because of the mass movements of people, the virus spread widely in the country and Azamgarh was not an exception. Fortunately, this was the time when Govt. of India allowed the private sector to start COVID testing and the Lifeline hospital becomes the first hospital of eastern UP who started regular COVID testing since 4th May for our admitted patients. From the day1 it becomes a basic admission norm after the introduction of this facility.
Again in this scenario, the common man was in our top priority, who was having nothing to earn for the last 3 months because of lockdown. In initial days a basic protocol set by leading neurosurgical societies was to consider every patient as a potential COVID positive and to evaluate him by RT-PCR by doing 3 times COVID testing at 5 days interval. It was the first time we started doing RT-PCR only 1 time in nonoperative and twice in surgical patients. A protocol which was followed by us from May, later on, become a general norm in July 2020 in the rest of the country.
As you can see we were ready to combat the situations of the storm which was much closed to our doorstep. As expected, COVID storm hits Azamgarh in late May and we were the first private sector of Azamgarh who immediately inform the authorities when we detected the first positive patient on 30th May.
It was the one and only Lifeline hospital in entire UP who was providing elective Operation services and neurosurgical operations in mid of the year 2020 when because of huge patient load and rapid spread, all the leading government sector hospitals had closed their super speciality services and converted into COVID hospitals. It's a long list of patients of brain tumour and serious neurosurgical illnesses, to whom we saved during this pandemic when all the doors were closed for them.
Till November 30th we investigated 1228 patients and detect 30 positive among them, again which is the largest case detection by any private hospital from Azamgarh.
We didn't stop here and introduced first private sector ICMR approved COVID testing centre of Azamgarh with the installation of advanced Multiplex assay TrueNat machine on 11th December, which is the second only private lab of eastern UP.
A self-explanatory fact regarding our seriousness of handling this pandemic, our passion to serve our society, dedication towards our profession as well as the quality of services which we are delivering is, even after 10 months there is not a single case among our 500 staff, who get infected while performing their duties in the Lifeline hospital.