30th June 2015, Kolkata:
Of more than 1,00,000 cases of foreign body ingestion reported each year in the United States, 80% occur in children between ages of six months and three years. It is estimated that 40% of accidental death under the age of 1 year is due to choking owing to ingestion or inhalation of foreign body. While over 90% of such events take place at home within the knowledge of parents/caregivers, this can also happen in crèche, schools or nursery. Coins, toys, toy parts, magnets, batteries, safety pins, screws, marbles, bones, food boluses and fish bones are the most commonly ingested foreign bodies. Maintaining a close supervision, familiarization with certain procedures and seeking prompt help can be life saving. Apart from the accidental occurrences there can be intentional occurrences due to bullet injury, stab injury etc.
Said Mr. Dilip Samadar, Managing Director, Peerless Hospital,’ Like most hospitals in the city, we manage a large number of common medical emergencies like heart attack, stroke, road traffic accidents, gastrointestinal bleeding. When a not so common emergency like a foreign body ingestion or aspiration arrives in the emergency department, prompt and careful management by a team of experts in multiple specialties determines fate between life and death. Peerless Hospital has come into rescue in this rather neglected emergency on many occasions and in some instance when a child has been turned away from other hospitals because of non availability of such service. Hence, our endeavor to escalate initiatives to teach basic life support in the community to sustain life till medical help is reached.
‘From a near fatal situation, there has been a huge improvement in reducing the fatality particularly in last 10 years. Accidental ingestion or aspiration can be a dramatic event to the affected individual, to those who may have witnessed it and to the healthcare personnel where a victim is brought for getting help. Lack of facility and expertise in some hospitals to deal with such emergency can be catastrophic. Good imaging, advances in endoscopic removal of foreign bodies, safer paediatric anaesthesia, availability of good antibiotics and above all good awareness have all been responsible to reduce fatalities in such victims,’ said Dr. Sujit Kar Purkayastha, Medical and Joint Managing Director, Peerless Hospital.
Mr. Milan Mondal, from Malda, came with an artificial denture impacted in the upper esophagus 10 days after ingestion when local management failed. By then there was severe swelling and necrosis (getting rotten) in nearby areas. Dr. M.N.Bhattacharyya, Consultant ENT Head and Neck Surgery removed the foreign body by performing Esophagoscopy.
Recovering patient Sariful Islam Halsana, from Nadia, survivor of bullet injury case was like any other individual we could come across. The bullet impacted deep inside the left lung near the scapula. An emergency operation by Dr. Ashim Dey, Consultant Cardiac Surgeon within 6 hours of his hospitalization saved his life.
Mr. Abdul Sk, from South 24 Parganas, came to the Emergency Department with a bullet injury in the vertebral column in the L5-S1 disc space which had caused some injury in the spinal cord and made the cerebro spinal fluid leak. A very critical surgery was done by Dr. Swarnendu Samanta, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon to remove the bullet and repair the injuries.
Little Moupiya Chatterjee and Nikita Sarkar, from Kolkata, in individual cases had accidentally swallowed a coin and a toy button. Dr. J. R. Mohapatra , Consultant Gastroenterologist endoscopically removed the foreign bodies in the first few hours of hospitalization. Dr. Sanjukta De, Consultant Paediatrician, under whom both these patients were admitted said, ‘Medical emergencies like choking, can happen at home or in schools. Simple techniques like Heimlich Maneuver if learnt and applied on the affected child can save a live especially when the child is in distress. To spread this awareness Peerless Hospital is doing training modules in Basic Life Support in Schools (BLISS) to train the teachers and staff of schools to handle medical emergencies.
For More Information Contact: www.peerlesshospital.com