Tamil Nadu native hails neo natal care at SAT Hospital

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Amid the recent controversy over Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanth’s advise to Kerala to learn from Uttar Pradesh hospitals, a Tamil Nadu resident based in Mumbai has narrated the personal experience of a relative who underwent treatment at SAT Hospital here. “Two days ago, my mom received a call from her sister in Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu. Her brother’s wife, my aunt, who was already enduring a very taxing pregnancy had just collapsed at her home in the final days of the seventh month.

They took her to a nearby maternity clinic. Her blood pressure was alarmingly low, the amniotic fluid was beginning to drain off and the fetus weighed around 1 kg which was way below normal. To add to that, the umbilical cord had wrapped around the fetus’s neck like a hangman’s noose,” said Altaf Abdul Kalam. His post was shared widely on social media. The baby needed to come out so she was taken to a private  hospital in Neyattinkara  in Thiruvananthapuram district. The hospital asked for Rs 3 lakh deposit which was not possible to arrange at such a short notice. One of the staff there suggested SAT Hospital.

The patient reached SAT at 11 pm. After quick assessment, analysis of reports she was given treatment.  Doctors said C-section was the best possible way to go. After stabilising her through medication, they operated her. The baby boy weighed 1080 grams. Now he is in one of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. SAT hospital superintendent Dr Santosh Kumar Asokan confirmed that the patient referred to in the report had actually received treatment at the hospital. “The patient is from Nagarcoil. Her baby boy weighs a little over 1 kg and is currently in NICU,” he said.

The SAT hospital has state of the art facilities incuding advanced phototherapy, ventilators , 20 bed NICU. The treatment is subsidised as the government spends heavily on providing better facilities for new born. Neo-natal intensive care units save lives of babies. Sleeping on the floor on a mat is pretty manageable in that regard. That’s how you sort priorities in a developing economy. “The birth of my cousin would have cost my uncle a fortune and there were even questions about that because the private hospital wouldn’t budge unless the money was deposited first. If there was no SAT, or if there was an ill-equipped, shoddily funded and poorly managed SAT, people like my uncle would have had nowhere to go,” he said.

“So, when Yogi Adityanath talks about the poor infant mortality rate in Kerala and that the state should learn from his government in UP, I don’t know what he is talking about. I wouldn't want my aunt to go anywhere near the BRD government medical college in Gorakhpur. An NICU which requires a constant supply of oxygen,” said Altaf Abdul Kalam. “Yogi should focus on improving healthcare in Uttar Pradesh. Every Indian deserves it. But instead, he seems focused on attacking a state that’s clealry better in the subject he is attacking them on. And that’s an injustice to the people of UP,” he said.