Education Minister Jagarnath Mahto has almost completed the ideal duration of three weeks for which a patient can be safely kept on Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO), a life support system, without the risk of developing health complications, doctors from the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (MGM) hospital in Chennai said on Monday.
“Ideally, it is safe to keep a patient on ECMO for three weeks. There could be complications such as blood clotting and infections if a patient is kept on this life support system for a longer duration,” said Dr. Suresh Rao, Co-director of Institute of Heart and Lung Transplantation & Mechanical Circulatory Assist Device at MGM.
However, Rao admitted that some patients suffering from similar respiratory malfunctioning were kept on ECMO for more than two months in the past and they survived. “Some patients develop health complications after completing the safety bracket of 21 days, and some don’t. The Jharkhand minister has been stable so far, but we are yet to get any lead regarding a donor,” he added.
ECMO is a life support system in which the gas exchange happens outside the body through a machine instead of the lungs in order to allow healing time to the organ.
Meanwhile, Agriculture Minister Badal visited Chennai on Monday and sought updates about Mahto’s condition from doctors at MGM Healthcare. After landing in Ranchi, Badal told media persons that Mahto was critical and in desperate need of a lung transplant.
The hospital authorities are yet to find a suitable lung donor for the 54-year-old Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader, whose lungs could not sustain the effects of a Covid-19 infection, leaving doctors with no option but to go for a lung transplant once a suitable donor is found.
The Education Minister tested positive for Covid-19 on September 28 and was admitted in the State-run Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi. He was shifted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Bhagwan Mahavir Medica Superspecialty hospital in the Jharkhand capital on October 1 and put on non-invasive ventilator after his condition deteriorated. The minister was flown to Chennai on October 19 and put on a life support system called ECMO at MGM Healthcare.
Mahto has been on ECMO for 20 days now, and keeping him on the life support system may cause infection in the lungs, bleeding or blood clots, doctors from the healthcare facility in the Tamil Nadu capital said.
The success rate of a lung transplant is about 70 per cent, said Dr. Rao, adding that at least four Covid-19 patients have undergone a lung transplant at the MGM and three of them were doing well. “We could not save one of the four patients,” he said.
Jharkhand has already lost its Minority Welfare Minister Haji Hussain Ansari to cardiac arrest, possibly triggered by a Covid-19 infection, which he overcame a day before his death. Mahto is the second state minister to be facing severe symptoms of the viral infection.
At least five ministers in the Jharkhand Cabinet have tested positive for Covid-19 so far. Besides Ansari and Mahto, Health Minister Banna Gupta, Drinking Water and Sanitation Minister Mithilesh Thakur and Agriculture Minister Badal Patralekh also tested positive for Covid-19 earlier.