|
 She scans the numbers from the 1,000 rupee ($13) oxygen monitor,
known as pulse oximeter, checking to ensure they are all above the
prescribed 95 mark and then notes them down in her logbook.
"When we didn't have this, we wouldn't know about their oxygen
levels," said Kumari, explaining how her team would worry about
patients' conditions rapidly worsening when India's capital was
badly short https://in.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-india-delhi/criticism-mounts-as-new-delhi-hospital-beds-run-out-amid-covid-19-surge-idINKBN23M1WY
of hospital beds. "Now we can find out in time and safely refer
patients to the hospital."
Delhi's government has so far distributed pulse oximeters to more
than 32,000 people for free, putting them at the heart of a plan to
isolate most asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic coronavirus patients
in their homes.
The program was devised in May, when coronavirus cases started
surging in the densely populated city of 20 million, sending
panicked residents rushing to hospitals.
"If we hadn't done this, there would've been no room to even stand
in our hospitals," Delhi's health minister, Satyendar Jain, told
Reuters.
With more than 3.5 million infections, India has reported the
world's third-highest number of coronavirus cases, and states across
the country have deployed a variety of measures to fight the
pandemic.
In Delhi, health authorities started noticing "happy hypoxemia" -
low blood oxygen levels without any breathlessness - that was
leading to complications in coronavirus patients isolated at home,
Jain said.
For regular monitoring, doctors told Jain that patients would either
have to visit hospitals or use the inexpensive oxygen monitors, many
of which are made in China.
Delhi has recorded around 173,000 infections with a little over
4,400 deaths. Only 14,700 cases remain active and many hospital beds
are now empty.
PROACTIVE MONITORING
Other cities across the world have also deployed the device.
In May, at the height of its outbreak, Singapore distributed several
thousand oximeters to migrant workers isolated in cramped
dormitories, which had become an epicenter for the virus's spread.
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Singapore's health ministry said oximeters allowed workers "to
proactively monitor their own health status and reach out for
medical assistance if needed".
In India, too, other places have picked up on Delhi's model. Since
late July, the northeastern state of Assam has provided nearly 4,000
oximeters to patients in home isolation.
Some doctors are concerned that patients may not always know how to
use the device.
"It's very important to train patients properly on how to use pulse
oximeters," said Dr Hemant Kalra, a pulmonologist in New Delhi,
adding that cheap, sub-standard oximeters flooding the market were
also a problem.
Jain, however, said the government's program had worked effectively, with not a
single fatality among the thousands of patients in home isolation the last month
and a half.
Oximeters have also helped cut down on expensive hospitalisation for mild cases,
Jain said, saving more than 10 times the device's price for each day in
hospital.
On a warm, humid day last week, health worker Kumari pulled on a protective
suit, a mask and goggles, before walking down the narrow lanes of the Chirag
Delhi neighborhood.
Together with a similarly dressed colleague, she stopped at Satish Kumar Soni's
home to check on him and three family members who were ending their 10-day
isolation period, and to collect two government-issued pulse oximeters.
Soni, a 59-year-old jeweller, said the device helped the family ease their fears
and anxiety as they slowly recovered.
"It's not that big a disease," he said. "If the oxygen level is fine, then there
isn't much danger."
(Reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal; Additional reporting by John Geddie in SINGAPORE,
Zarir Hussain in GUWAHATI, and Saurabh Sharma in LUCKNOW. Editing by Gerry
Doyle)
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