A 96-year-old woman has been discharged from the Multi-Super-Speciality Government Medical College Hospital at Omandurar Government Estate after she recovered from COVID-19.
Twenty men and 11 women aged over 90 have returned home after undergoing treatment at the hospital so far. Among them, 10 were asymptomatic and 21 were symptomatic.
Dean R. Jayanthi said 15 of them had arrived with breathlessness and 11 had complained of cough. Seven had fever. In 68% of these patients, the lung involvement was more than 5%, doctors said. Among the nonagenarians who came to the hospital, one was from an old-age home while the rest were being cared for by their families.
V. Thripurasundari, 96, a resident of Telephone Nagar in Perungudi, was discharged on Sunday. She was admitted to the hospital after her son and daughter-in-law tested positive. Nirmala Ganesan said she had fever on October 12 and approached a doctor, who prescribed paracetamol. But three days later, she developed diarrhoea. With no change in her condition, the 59-year-old underwent the COVID-19 test, which returned positive. She was admitted on October 20.
“I have diabetes and got admitted for treatment. The next day my mother-in-law and husband, who is 62, were admitted,” she said. “The hospital took good care of us. They monitored my sugar levels regularly. My son and daughter-in-law were home-quarantined. We were discharged only after they ensured that we were completely cured. We were discharged three days after we tested negative,” Ms. Nirmala said.
Dr. Jayanthi said elderly patients generally had lung involvement, ranging from 5% to 50%. “This patient was so jubilant that she broke into a song for us,” she said. “Usually, we say advanced age is prognostically not good but these people have stood it well. At the Omandurar hospital, more than 15% of those admitted are elderly persons,” she said.
Since March 27, when the institution was designated as a COVID-19 hospital, it has treated 23,037 patients, with a discharge rate of 92.6%.
