Ahmedabad: 17-day-old baby discharged after intestine surgery

AHMEDABAD: When Savita Pattani (name changed), a resident of Meghaninagar, tested positive before delivering a child at Shardaben Hospital, the doctors were apprehensive about the newborn. But the baby tested negative. When the child started developing complications, he was kept under observation and was tested again. This time, the result came positive.
“It was then that the hospital authorities decided to send the child to Civil Hospital for a surgical procedure,” said Dr Rakesh Joshi, the head of paediatric surgery at Civil Hospital.“ The child was diagnosed with mid-jejunal atresia, a congenital anomaly of the small intestine where its end is not developed and causes obstructions.”
The doctors weighed the pros and cons of immediate surgery before the child recovers from Covid-19 and it was decided that it was a necessity to save the child from further complications. A team of experts including Dr Jaishri Ramji, Dr Jolly Vaishnav and Dr Charul Purani oversaw the surgical procedure and the follow-up. The child was kept under observation for 13 days before discharge on Friday.
Officials at Civil Hospital said that so far the hospital has witnessed four surgical procedures on toddlers with Covid-19. While one of the children could not survive after the procedure, two were discharged on Friday whereas one is still under observation.
The other child that was discharged on Friday was two-year-old boy from Bapunagar. He was initially admitted to Shardaben Hospital with high-grade fever and abdominal cramps. The ultrasound showed a large liver abscess (collection of puss) of about 100ml, said doctors.
“The team of doctors addressed his internal bleeding and carried out an operation on May 21,” said an official.