Telemedicine saves life of mother, newborn

Mandi, September 10

In a feat of emergency delivery at an altitude of more than 12,000 feet in Kaza, the telemedicine facility with Apollo telehealth played a crucial role in saving two lives, that of a mother and her child, recently. The 27-year-old mother was admitted to the Kaza Community Health Centre (CHC) and was diagnosed with Abruptio Placentae. While a caesarean-section was performed to deliver the baby, the mother developed complications of post-surgical bleeding.

Dr Alpha Khakhar, a consultant from Apollo Hospital, said, “We obtained detailed patient history, performed thorough examination over telemedicine and diagnosed the condition as post-partum haemorrhage. Following that, we advised the line of treatment for clinical management of the patient.”

“Complications were also starting to show effects on the baby as the delivery was pre-term and the baby was born with low body weight. In addition to that, the baby had bluish discolouration at birth,” she added.

Tanzin Dolkar, a staff nurse at Apollo Hospital, Kaza, said “Due to the difficulty in arranging logistics for the movement of the patients, given the terrain constraints, both the mother and child had to be managed round-the-clock for six days at CHC Kaza. Finally, after arranging for logistics support, both the mother and the baby were shifted to Mission Hospital in Manali. Their condition stabilised a day after the initial treatment procedures.”

Tanzin Norbu, Block Medical Officer (BMO) at Kaza, said the telemedicine facility had played crucial role to save the lives of both the mother and her newborn. —TNS