The Da Nang General Hospital said that it had just saved the life of a woman who had COVID-19 and local anesthetic systemic toxicity after a cesarean section.

The woman has been out of the critical condition and is being treated at the Da Nang General Hospital. Photo courtesy of the hospital.

Specifically, the woman, 23, living in Quang Nam Province was 38 weeks pregnant, lacking amniotic fluid and was ordered by a lower-level hospital to have a caesarean section.

After 6 hours of surgery, the patient's condition was very critical, blood pressure dropped, consciousness was agitated, and respiratory failure happened, which prompted her to be transferred to the Da Nang General Hospital for emergency.

At the hospital, the patient was diagnosed and monitored for spinal anesthetic poisoning after cesarean section, with severe COVID-19 infection, acute cardiopulmonary damage and acute respiratory failure.

Immediately, the patient was transferred to the isolation room of the Department of Tropical Medicine and was intubated, mechanically ventilated, and intensively resuscitated in ICU. Because of local anesthetic poisoning, the patient's heart was very seriously damaged, the lungs are badly diffused on both sides, and there was not enough gas exchange.

The medical treatment did not respond, so the team of the Faculty of Tropical Medicine consulted with the Department of Intensive Care - Anti-poisoning to apply ECMO ( extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) technique right at the Faculty of Tropical Medicine to save the life of the patient.

During ECMO, the patient was monitored, intensively resuscitated, mechanically ventilated, and administered high-dose vasopressors. After 5 days, the patient's cardiopulmonary indicators gradually recovered, weaned off ECMO and continued to be treated according to the severe COVID-19 cure regimen. After nearly 15 days of treatment, the patient was completely off the ventilator, had good contact, was negative for the virus.

According to doctor Nguyen Tan Hung, the Deputy head of the Department of Intensive Care - Anti-poison at the Da Nang General Hospital, this is a very complicated and severe case.

The female patient had up to 3 severe complications at the same time. Patients who have just had a cesarean section are at risk of severe coagulopathy, which can cause bleeding. In addition, the patient had both cardiopulmonary damage due to local anesthetic poisoning and severe lung damage due to COVID-19 infection, so the prognosis for death is very high.

Doctors combined many techniques such as ECMO, maximum mechanical ventilation, using high-dose vasopressors to save the patient's life.

The patient's health condition is now stable and she is about to be discharged from the hospital.

Reporting by PHAN CHUNG - Translating by A.THU