Kolkata: Friends gang up, wean patient off oxygen with video call lure

KOLKATA: Among the many critical patients that doctors at MR Bangur Hospital have successfully treated in this pandemic is a 53-year-old who was admitted with acute respiratory distress on July 22. However, doctors encountered a strange problem while treating Subrata Roy. Even though his oxygen saturation level improved, he feared he would suffocate if taken off oxygen support. Ultimately, his friends — one of them a Covid doctor at a different government hospital — helped wean him off supplemental oxygen.
Roy, who works as an accountant in a private firm and dabbles in photography, developed low fever in mid-July but ignored it. He got tested on July 20 and the positive report came on July 22. By then, he had developed breathing trouble and was taken to MR Bangur Hospital.
It was his friends from the Photographic Association of Bengal (PAB) who arranged for the ambulance and hospitalization after one of them contacted Sonarpur Uttar MLA Firdousi Begum. PAB’s illustrious members include Satyajit Ray, Nimai Ghosh and Aparna Sen.
For nine days, doctors battled on as his oxygen saturation fluctuated.
Thereafter, his condition improved rapidly and by Monday, his parameters were stable. All the while, Indranil Mitra, a doctor at a government hospital dealing with Covid patients, kept track of Roy’s condition. Though Roy’s oxygen saturation had improved, Mitra saw he continued to wear the oxygen mask during the video calls. Probing the cause, he learnt it was a result of a panic attack Roy had suffered last Friday when he saw a patient in the next bed collapse.
Sensing it was more a psychological issue than a physiological one, Mitra organized a WhatsApp group video call with other club members to boost Roy’s confidence. Chatting about various subjects, one of the members subtly told Roy he wasn’t audible, prompting him to remove the oxygen mask.
“Seeing Roy remove the mask for the first time in several days and speak without discomfort was great. But we didn’t express delight or surprise. Instead, we decided we would call him around 8pm every day,” recounted Shankar Mondal, former secretary of PAB. The next day, Roy removed the mask without being prompted. By the end of the conversation, Roy realized he didn’t require oxygen support any more. He was discharged on Thursday.