Heart Breaking Story: Doctor Mortgages MBBS degree to pay for wife's ECMO treatment

According to media reports, Dr Suresh Chaudhary mortgaged his registration number for arranging money for the treatment which cost more than Rs 1.25 crore in total.

Hailing from the Khirwa village in Rajasthan's Pali, the 32-year-old doctor is currently posted in a PHC. Although he was happily married with his wife and a 5-year-old child, the scenario changed completely during the second wave of the COVID pandemic, when the doctor's wife tested positive for the infection on May 13.

As the situation of the patient deteriorated, she got admitted to AIIMS Jodhpur on May 14. Although the doctor was there with his wife in the beginning, after two days he left her in charge of the relatives to join duty as the pandemic was at its peak back then and the doctors were not getting leaves.

When he reached Jodhpur to meet his wife on May 30, the condition of the patient had worsened. The patient had been put on a ventilator and her lungs had deteriorated to 95%.

Even though the doctors had informed him that there were lesser chances of survival, he didn't give up and took the patient for better treatment to Ahmedabad. On June 1, the patient had been admitted to a private hospital.

Meanwhile, the health of the patient had deteriorated and she had lost around 20 kgs of body weight with only 1.5 units of blood left in her body. After this, the patient had been put on the ECMO machine, where the heart and lungs are managed from outside.

Keeping the patient on ECMO support did cost around Rs 1 lakh every day. Even though the doctor was being burdened with huge debt, his only aim was to save his wife's life back then.

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Dainik Bhaskar adds that the doctor only had around Rs 10 lakh in his savings. He took Rs 70 lakh loan by mortgaging his MBBS degree and sold a plot in Kharda village for Rs 15 lakhs. Another Rs 20 lakh had been arranged by fellow doctors and staff who had campaigned for this purpose. The remaining amount had been taken from the relatives.

The loan conditions were pretty scary for the doctor, who only earns around Rs 90,000 per month. On the other hand, the EMI for loan is around Rs 1 lakh 16 thousand every month, which the doctor has to repay for about 4 years starting from June 2021.

While providing the loan of Rs 70 lakh, four banks had mortgaged the registration number of the doctor. As per the contract, if the doctor fails to pay the loan within the time period, his MBBS degree could be cancelled by the bank.

However, all's well that ends well. Miraculously, the patient started recovering after staying in ECMO for 87 days. Gradually her lungs improved and she started speaking again. Soon afterwards, she was discharged from the hospital.

While the wife told the daily that she was alive only because of her husband, the doctor clarifies that they have to support each other for the seven births. "How could I let her die in front of my eyes? I can always earn more money, but I might have died if something would have happened to her," said the doctor.