Landlords refuse to rent out property to heart recipient

JAIPUR: Sawai Man Singh (SMS) Hospital doctors are facing difficulties in finding an accommodation for 47-year-old heart recipient as landlords are refusing to entertain him as soon as they hear that he is admitted to the hospital. The heart recipient will be discharged from the hospital— now the main centre of Covid-19 patients in the state — on Thursday. Since the recipient is immunocompromised, the treating doctors do not want to keep him in the hospital for more days as there are chances of him getting infected. At the same time, doctors will have to keep this Alwar resident in Jaipur only for regular check-ups for which they have been searching for a locality from where no case of Covid-19 has been reported.

But, the doctors are facing difficulties in finding accommodation for him as landlords refuse to rent their place to him. The doctors are apprehensive in keeping him in hospital further it has turned into a Covid-19 treatment centre and they are also reluctant to use air conditioners in the recipient’s ICU as there might be chances of getting infected air into the ICU.

“We have to discharge him on Thursday, but we are finding difficulty in finding a safe place for him. The patient is immunocompromised, so he requires a place where the chances of getting infected with Covid-19 is none. We tried and contacted landlords but when they learn that the patient is coming from

SMS Hospital

, they refuse to give him their place,” Dr Anil Sharma, head of the department, cardiothoracic surgery, SMS Hospital, who spearheaded the transplant.

“Before reaching him, one has to pass through six doors, this is the kind of protection we have given to him ,” the doctor said.

So far the doctors managed to keep the patient healthy though there were several complications in heart transplant and also post-transplant care. The recipient had a valve replacement surgery in 2011. His heart was functioning just 15% of the capacity. He also had cardiomyopathy, which made it harder for his heart to pump blood. He was bed-ridden due to his ailing heart condition. On February 12, SMS Hospital had conducted its second heart transplant when he received the heart of a 17-year-old boy from Bikaner. Since then, the recipient, though had several complications, remained on recovery track due to hard work of doctors. He is still in post heart transplant ICU.

“We have to assess him every third day, and want to keep him near to the hospital. However, we are in touch with landlords in Gangwal Park and Moti Doongri Road,” said

Dr Sharma

.

The past two months were full of challenges for doctors as the patient had complained several complications. At one point of time, the patient went into disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (a condition affecting the blood’s ability to clot and stop bleeding) following which the patient lost excessive blood. The doctors had to take him to operation theatre again for preventing excessive blood loss.

In two months, the doctors transfused 19 units of blood, 55 units of plasma and 14 units of single donor platelets.

While on recovery mode, the patient had also suffered from diaphragmatic palsy, which is why, the patient felt difficulty in breathing. The doctors had to conduct tracheotomy, a medical procedure to create an opening in the neck in order to place a tube in the recipient’s windpipe so that the patient should breath properly without the use of ventilator support.

A specific kind of paralysis known as rhabdomyolysis, which caused weakening recipient’s muscles of left leg, right hand and left side of the face. Doctors said that in rhabdomyolysis, the recipient had suffered breakdown muscle tissue that released a damaging protein into the blood.

The patient also suffered mediastinitis, a kind of inflammation of chest cavity. It is a life-threatening condition.

The patient also complained of hyponatremia and

hypernatremia

and hyperthyroidism during recovery phase due to fluctuating levels of sodium in the blood. Due to lack of protein, the patient suffered from hypoproteinemia, which is the reason of ascites (a condition in which fluid accumulates in abdomen).