THE AMAZING FEAT OF DOCTORS FROM "BEŽANIJSKA KOSA" CLINICAL HOSPITAL CENTRE: Artificial lungs saved the life of a COVID-19 patient

Foto: Privatna arhiva

The patient is 31 years old and has not been vaccinated. The patient first tested positive 28 days ago and was admitted to the hospiral twelve days ago. The ventilator could no longer help him, so the doctors decided to connect him to the so-called artificial lungs.

Dr. Marija Zdravković, the director of CHC "Bežanijska kosa", says for RTS that the patient is now excellent and that his oxygen saturation has increased to 96 and 97.

- Before the patient was placed on the device, the saturation was from 78 to 80, and we had to find a solution with all the treatment measures because we were heading for a negative sequence of events, due to a poor reaction to mechanical ventilation - Dr. Zdravković said.

The essence of this device, the doctor points out, is for it to take over the functionality of the lungs until they heal on their own, because, as she says, it is very important to find a new type of ventilation for all those patients whose lungs have not healed from the COVID-19 infection.

- It is the most modern device that exists in the world in terms of replacing the heart and lungs, but it cannot change the heart and lungs at the same time, it can only do one or the other - the doctor explained.

The recovery time of the patient, she says, is individual, and it is estimated at two to four weeks.

According to her, this is the first time that such a device has been used on a patient at the CHC "Bežanijska kosa", and before that such patients had to go to the Institute for Lung Diseases "Sremska Kamenica".

- We have now introduced this method of treatment into the regular procedure - said Dr. Zadravković and thanked the doctors for their cooperation, as well as the support of the Ministry of Health.

It is also worth mentioning that there are currently 226 patients in the KBC "Bežanijska kosa" and 10 percent of them are in very serious conditions.