Jahangeer Ganaie
Srinagar, Jun 25: A doctor from Kashmir is helping dozens of patients requiring emergency treatment for heart ailments through WhatsApp.
Dr Irfan Ahmad Bhat, a cardiologist at Government Medical College Srinagar has become part of Saveheart initiative, the largest virtual hospital in Kashmir working through social media platform WhatsApp.
He told news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), that he became part of the Saveheart initiative in 2015 when a patient with a cardiac issue at Baltal, over 100 kms away from a tertiary care hospital, required emergency treatment.
That time, a doctor accompanying the Yatra pilgrim from Uttar Pradesh at Baltal made a whatsApp call to a cardiologist seeking his help.
“It wasn’t wise to shift the pilgrim from Baltal, rather it was important to give him right treatment at right time,” he said, adding, “the doctor posted their communicated with us and we discussed the ECG, the required drug available there was given to the patient to save his life.”
People living in remote areas whenever they have cardiac issues need time in order to reach any nearest tertiary care hospital which most of the time proves fatal for them, he added.
Patients who have cardiac emergency need thrombosis and first aid after which they can be shifted to tertiary care hospital , he said.
“Whenever we receive a call, we analyse the ECG and ensure that right treatment is given to patient at right time at their doorstep,” he said, adding, “as cardiac emergency case reaches the first medical contact in the area, the doctor uploads ECG in WhatsApp group of Saveheart initiative, where a cardiologist evaluates the ECG following which he guides the official how to handle the patient.”
Dr Bhat has handled hundreds of emergency cases online by guiding the first medical contact in golden hour.
Notably there are 1200 doctors part of the initiative to handle cardiac emergency patients online at their doorstep and this group has already analysed over 1 lakh ECGs thereby saving hundreds of lives.
“Sometimes I visit patients living in remote areas to see them, which gives me a lot of satisfaction,” he said.
Save Heart Kashmir aims at providing timely and affordable management in case of acute cardiac events all across the Kashmir division which lacks adequate expertise at district and sub district level peripheral hospitals. It effectively integrates all levels of health care via social networking to diagnose, discuss and thrombolyse the patient in the golden hour at the nearest health facility. It stresses on use of thrombolysis for treatment of STEMIs in all sub district and district level health facilities with continuous support of experts via an integrated social network having about 500 doctors on board.
The timely management as first medical contact is the peripheral hospital and receiving thrombolysis at these centres within the golden hour is the priority and then patients are subsequently referred for pharmacoinvasive management. Since we don’t have medical insurance, affording angioplasties at odd hours is very difficult for the majority of the patients.
The pharmacoinvasive procedures done at tertiary care have revealed that all patients had flowing coronaries post thrombolysis at their primary contact {peripheral hospital]. Hence Save Heart Kashmir has contributed to reduced morbidity and mortality in patients suffering from acute cardiac events using social media as a viable tool in cardiac care—(KNO)
