Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi will soon become the first Government-run hospital in Jharkhand to offer Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) facility to critically-ill patients with severely damaged lungs, health officials said on Wednesday.
Health Minister Banna Gupta recently directed the RIMS administration to procure at least two ECMO machines, used for artificial breathing, in order to provide the facility of this life support system to patients suffering from Covid-induced lung fibrosis, which may lead to the failure of lungs if not treated on time. “No Government hospital in our state has ECMO support for patients at present. I have given my nod for procurement of two ECMO machines that will help in treatment of patients at RIMS,” said Gupta.
Through ECMO, blood is pumped outside of a patient’s body to a heart-lung machine that removes carbon dioxide and sends oxygen-filled blood back to tissues in the body. When a patient with damaged lungs is on ECMO support, the gas exchange happens outside the body through the machine instead of the lungs. Once the blood is oxygenated and carbon dioxide is removed, it is given back to the heart, from where it circulates to other parts of the body.
In Ranchi, only Bhagwan Mahavir Medica Superspecialty Hospital has three ECMO machines. Many other private hospitals in the state have also started procuring the machine after several deaths due to lung damage reported in the state and other parts of India.
ECMO was used by several private and some government hospitals across the country to save lives of Covid patients during the first and the second waves of Covid-19, say doctors. Education Minister Jagarnath Mahto, who is back in Jharkhand after his lung transplant at MGM Chennai, was also kept on ECMO support for several days in the Tamil Nadu capital. Many patients suffering from lung fibrosis recover after being kept on ECMO for a couple of weeks, say doctors. Keeping patients on this life-support system also buys time for finding a lung donor if the patient does not respond to ECMO and needs a transplant.
With RIMS getting the facility of ECMO, many patients suffering from severe Covid-induced respiratory ailments will not have to move to bigger cities for treatment, at least during the initial phase, doctors from the State-run hospital said. Even during the second wave of the pandemic, several patients had to move to Hyderabad, Chennai or Mumbai because very few hospitals in the state had this facility, doctors involved in the fight against Covid-19 said.