Battling Covid's after effects

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Covid-19 Patients Are Struggling To Cope After Leaving Hospitals

Months after the pandemic began, it’s clear that Covid-19 wreaks havoc in the lungs of moderate to critically ill patients as they grapple with weakness, breathlessness and fatigue for weeks, if not months. It’s like the lungs forget their primary function. Hence, say experts, pulmonary rehabilitation, aimed at reminding the lungs to do what they do—inhale, exhale and supply a good amount of oxygen to the body through a set of individualised but monitored exercises—is critical to the recovery process. But hospitals across the country, still overwhelmed by the sheer volume of Covid-19 patients, have paid little to no attention to this aspect.

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In Mumbai, one of the country’s worst-hit cities, civic hospitals have just begun waking up to the need to offer physiotherapy to patients while they are in the hospital. A post-discharge rehab protocol is still not in place.