Hospital locked down, but baby girl saved
The baby girl with low weight and serious congenital heart disease at Xinhua Hospital.
Doctors at Shanghai Xinhua Hospital saved a premature one-month girl with an extremely low birth weight and congenital heart disease during lockdown for medical screening.
The girl, who was sent by an ambulance from Hangzhou in neighboring Zhejiang Province to Xinhua on Friday, was the younger of a pair of twin girls delivered at 32 weeks of pregnancy. She was only 1,050 grams upon delivery.
During a check 20 days after delivery due to breath shortness, Hangzhou doctors found she had serious aortic coarctation. The aorta is the main channel to transport blood for the heart. The problem can cause abnormal blood supply all over the body, especially the lower part.
The girl was sent to Hangzhou Children's Hospital, which is a member of Xinhua's network in Yangtze River Delta region. There is a green channel inside the network for patients transfer.
The Hangzhou hospital informed Xinhua upon receiving the girl for consultation.
"We are closely following the child's condition," said Dr Chen Sun, director of Xinhua's heart center. "Usually congenital heart disease surgery is conducted while the child is 4 to 5 kilograms for safety.
"The girl's weight was too low, so we wanted to conduct the surgery after she gained enough weight. However she started to show more serious symptoms recently. So we arranged the surgery."
The girl was transported to Xinhua on Thursday. After checks, doctors arranged the surgery.
Xinhua began closed-loop management on Friday noon. The patient had a sudden collapse and was revived two rescues at ICU on Friday night.
Surgery was the only chance for her. Since the parents were not with her due to lockdown, doctors launched a green channel and reporting process for the emergency surgery on Saturday morning.
The 1,800-gram girl received the surgery, which was very risky due to her low weight, young age and unstable condition.
The patient's blood vessels were very thin, as the thickest part of the aorta was only 4 millimeters. Doctors used sutures slimmer than hair to reconstruct the vessels and save the girl's life with the 2-hour surgery.
The girl is now in stable condition.
Xinhua lifted lockdown at 6pm on Saturday.
Doctors in surgery.
Doctors uses sutures slimmer than hair.
