Indus Valley Times

BY SWAGATIKA BHUTIA

BHUBANESWAR, SEPT. 17: Many patients undergo prolonged illness after recovering in the ICU. Often the treatment that helps them to breathe is a hole in the neck (tracheostomy), which needs to stay for a long time. The prolonged hospital stay becomes difficult for the patient, the family and the health system.

A unique event highlighting 200 cases of home-rehabilitation of post ICU tracheostomized patients over last 2 years was organised by the AIIMS ICU Rehabilitation ( AIR) project team. The event named “200 and growing” witnessed  health care workers, doctors, nurses , rehabilitated patients and their family members come together on one platform to share stories.

The motive of the event was to enhance awareness among the various stakeholders to widen the reach of such rehabilitation projects. The project team was introduced, key parameters that ensure successful rehabilitation such as the AIR-mobile application, equipment banking, training at bedside and home follow up were discussed.

The Chief Guest of the program Prof. Ashutosh Biswas, Executive-Director, AIIMS Bhubaneswar congratulated the AIR team and the patient-family members for enabling home care of these patients. Prof. Biswas interacted directly with the patients and some of their families who shared their experiences. Dr. Dinabandhu Sahoo, Joint Director and Team Leader of National Health Mission Odisha , which has funded this Innovation Project, was the Guest of Honour. He spoke about the vision of the government and MD NHM to improve holistic health in the state. Family members with extensive contribution towards the program by motivating other families and patients were felicitated by the Director AIIMS Bhubaneswar. Satisfied family members also donated some equipment to the project for other needy patients.

Principal Investigator of the project Dr Swagata Tripathy presented the journey of Project AIR till date, along with its futuristic goal to more than 150 members in the audience. Project team from various Departments- Anaesthesia and Critical Care, College of Nursing (CON), Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and participants including both patients and their families spoke about the benefits received and how they participated in the project along with health care workers. Other prominent members in the audience  were  Mr Malaya Kumar Panigrahi, State Finance Officer NHM Odisha, Medical Superintendent AIIMS, Dean Research Doctors and Heads of departments including Neurosurgery, Neurology, Anaesthesia and Critical Care, Nursing staff and Principal CON, AIIMS Bhubaneswar.