Two
patients bothered me as I woke up today morning.
The
first was SD, a lady with a rupture uterus. SD had a Cesarian section couple of
years back. But, as has been the case with many of our other patients, nobody
told her that her next one should also be an institutional delivery. We had lost our previous patient, AD with a rupture uterus following a previous Cesarian section.
SD’s
pain started early morning yesterday. She was being managed at home. They
decided to take her to the nearest district hospital, where she reached at
around 6 pm yesterday. From the district hospital, they asked her to be
referred here.
SD
reached NJH at around midnight. It was an obvious rupture uterus with a dead
baby. And the family was so poor. They did not know what to do. Till morning
they did not go anywhere. They did not know what it took to arrange blood. To
make matters she was also in sepsis.
Sometime
around morning, couple of our staff agreed to donate blood. And we proceeded
with the surgery.
The
mother is doing well. We hope she will recovery without problems.
The best part about SD was that she had a referral letter . . .
The
second patient I was quite concerned about was Loric Singh, who has been in the
ventilator for more than couple of weeks. He was on the road to recovery till
today morning, when he started to deteriorate because of which he had to be put
once again into the ventilator.
I
was thinking aloud of whether it could be something else which bit him.
That
was when the bystander told me that the type of krait which bit him was of a
very poisonous nature. I told him that I thought all kraits were of the same
type. Then he told me that the snake had been kept safe with the family back in
his village. A very common custom in the region, where the snake is caught and
kept alive till the victim is cured or dead.
I
enquired if it is possible to bring the snake.
The
snaps of the snake are below.
The
villagers know this a ‘ghadait’ . . . a coarser version of ‘krait’. It is the
elder of the krait . . . a very old
krait. Some claimed that it was a different species.
However,
on closer examination, it is evident that it is a krait.
However,
according to many of our staff from the villagers, it is commonly believed that
a ‘ghadait’ bite is always fatal. One of the elderly villagers told me that he
does not know anybody who has survived a ‘ghadait’ bite.
Something
new . . . An elderly krait has a more potent and lethal venom than an young krait .
. .
Would
appreciate your comments . . .
