67-year-old critically ill patient airlifted from US to Chennai for treatment

Chennai: In the 'longest' such initiative, a 67-year-old critical patient from Bengaluru was flown to Chennai from the US on Tuesday for treatment, travelling about 23 hours before being admitted to a corporate hospital in the city. 

The woman's evacuation from Portland Oregon cost about Rs one crore.

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Upon the patient's arrival here, renowned senior interventional cardiologist Dr Sai Satish and a team of doctors examined her. She was subjected to tests at Apollo Hospital in Chennai where she was admitted, sources told PTI.

She had developed cardiac failure whilst she was in the US with her family and was admitted to a tertiary hospital there.

"Her health subsequently deteriorated further affecting other organ systems. She went into renal failure and was stabilised on dialysis," Dr Shalini Nalwad, who founded International Critical-Care Air Transfer Team (ICATT) along with Dr Rahul Singh Sardar, told PTI in Bengaluru.

ICATT was contacted by Dr Sai Satish from Apollo, Chennai for the transfer.

"The ICATT had also transferred the longest air ambulance transfer with a single set of the crew during the lockdown from Johannesburg to Chennai. Now, we broke our own record by successfully transferring a critical patient from the USA to India," Dr Nalwad claimed.

According to Dr Nalwad, a lot of discussion and planning was held between the treating doctors in the US, their counterparts in Chennai and ICATT members.

After meticulous planning, the operation date was fixed for July 17 and the ICATT sent its flying Intensivist on July 15 to Portland directly, she said and added, a thorough bedside assessment was carried out and a transport strategy laid out.

"The biggest challenge in this operation was that the kidneys were completely dialysis-dependent and this therapy cannot be provided in transit. The transit time that they were facing was 23 hours in total, including 19.5 hours on a flight alone," the doctor said.

"This was going to be a complex ICU management, away from any help at 41,000 feet in most of the journey of 23 hours," she said.

The operation to shift the patient from the US to Chennai began at 2.30 pm local time there.

There was a change in the crew in Istanbul on the way back and the patient landed at 2 am on July 19 in Chennai. She was handed over at the receiving hospital in the city by ICATT's medical team where her further management immediately commenced, Dr Nalwad said.

According to her, the ICATT has a track record of transferring highly critical patients, domestically and internationally, over the past 5 years.

During the Pandemic, ICATT transferred the first Covid-positive patient by air in a specialised isolation pod from Afghanistan to Hyderabad when there was a global aviation lockdown, she said adding, that 148 ECMO (Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) initiation and transfers were done over 18 months where more than 500 covid positive critical patients were airlifted.

Shifting patients back from the US to India shows that the latter is rapidly becoming the preferred destination for medical treatment, especially in the Heart, Lung, Liver and Kidney management and Chennai has one of the best hospitals in the country, she explained.

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