Second Covid wave: Many rushing to Mumbai for treatment – Times of India

MUMBAI: Srinagar resident Mohammed Husain (68) travelled 2,000km here when diagnosed with black fungal infection a month after he recovered from Covid.
Faizabad businessman Shamshad Khan was brought by road in a cardiac ambulance on April 26 when, two days after he was detected with Covid-19, his oxygen saturation dipped to 70.
They are not the only ones who rushed to the financial capital for medical help when struck with Covid-19 or post-Covid complications, doctors across Mumbai say that patients from outside Maharashtra are coming in increasing numbers. As Shamshad Khan’s brother Rizwan, a Powai resident, puts it: “We had no option but to shell out Rs 1 lakh for the ambulance ride to get him here. There were no oxygen support beds or ventilators available in Faizabad when my brother got serious.’’
Bombay Hospital’s Dr Gautam Bhansali, who coordinates between BMC and private hospitals on Covid care, said he has had 27 outstation patents in two months. Earlier in the week, a patient from Indore with a CT scan score of 24/25 came to Bombay Hospital via an air ambulance. The emergence of mucormycosis has perhaps added to the ‘rush’. Husain had barely recovered from Covid and hadn’t enough time to grieve for his wife’s death from the same disease when the “pain’’ started. “My tooth was aching and there was a weird itch near my nostrils,’’ he said. He got the diagnosis of mucormycosis on May 18, almost a month after he was diagnosed with Covid in Srinagar, and within 24 hours he boarded a stop-over flight to Mumbai. “My friend who knows Dr Bhansali advised me to rush here,’’ said Husain, who got discharged two days back.
While Mumbai is viewed as the Mecca of healthcare in India, talk of ‘Mumbai model’ perhaps prompted many serious patients to rush here. “We didn’t see such a response after the first wave,’’ said Dr Bhansali.
Patients from interiors of the state have always come to Mumbai for treatment. In fact, most of the 40-odd mucormycosis patients admitted in Nair Hospital, near Mumbai Central, are from outside Mumbai. Dr Rahul Pandit, who heads the ICU at Fortis Hospital, Mulund, said many young patients under 45 have travelled from Jalgaon and Nagpur to his hospital. He said many young had severe Covid during the second wave and needed ventilator support that is now accessible in Mumbai.
Dr Abid Sayed from Sai Hospitals said 10 patients came to his Chembur and Dharavi hospitals from Goa, Bhopal Varanasi and Ayodhya. “Most are young, with severe Covid lungs,’’ he said. Shamshad Khan from Faizabad had a CT scan score of 17/25 when admitted to the Dharavi hospital; Khan was discharged after 25 days and continues on oxygen support at home. “The earliest he can go home is July,’’ said his brother Rizwan.