A race against time and Nature’s fury
Two tiny lives snatched from the brink of being snuffed out. A little girl born prematurely at 28 weeks of gestation and a little boy born prematurely at 35 weeks of gestation.
Amidst the trials, tribulations and tragedy of this unprecedented calamity, it was a valiant joint operation by the state health sector and the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) that ensured the rescue of the baby girl weighing 1.14kg on Day 5 of her precious life and the baby boy weighing 1.74kg on Day 3 of his life, from the Chilaw District General Hospital on November 29.
The two newborns being made comfortable in basins in Chilaw, before being flown to Katunayake. Pix courtesy of SLAF Media Division & LRH
And those who played a major part in this marvellous rescue mission were teams from the premier Lady Ridgeway Hospital (LRH) for Children, Colombo; the Chilaw District General Hospital; and the SLAF.
The emergency had arisen when the Chilaw Hospital was not just heavily flooded but also plunged into darkness without electricity, resulting in the life-saving incubators and ventilators becoming non-functional.
For, Cyclone Ditwah had made landfall on Sri Lanka’s east coast early on November 28, causing torrential rains, widespread floods and devastating landslides.
From left: Dr. Janaka Rathnagoda, Dr. Dinesh Koggalage; Dr. Sheran Wijesundara and Nursing Officer Nawanjana Bandara in Chilaw
It was a race against time for these infants and how the state system works for the most vulnerable in Sri Lanka is evident when we see them safe and sound on Wednesday (December 3), oblivious to the near-miss they have endured, in the LRH’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of the Premature Baby Unit (PBU).
With tribute being paid by LRH Director Dr. Pradeep Wijesinghe to his staff, the life-saving tale unfolds through Deputy Director Dr. Santhushitha Senapathi.
Dr. Pradeep Wijesinghe
It had been early morning on November 29, when there was an urgent call from the Health Ministry’s Dr. Champika Wickramasinghe that there were two premature babies and to make ready two incubators.
“Usually, babies needing such critical care are brought to us at the LRH. However, in this instance, we had to go fetch them,” explains Dr. Senapathi, pointing out that they had only two ‘transport’ incubators but one was under repair. Their ambulances also could not be fitted with such incubators, as usually only stretchers were used.
Having only one ambulance, meanwhile, LRH quickly borrowed another from the De Soysa Hospital for Women (DMH).
The LRH team was ready to roll at 8 a.m. It comprised Senior Medical Officer (MO) Dr. Janaka Rathnagoda; MO Dr. Sheran Wijesundara; Nursing Officers Nawanjana Bandara, Subodhya Dahanayaka, Koshila Widuwanthi & Chathurika Kalhari; and junior staffers Tharanga Perera, Sasanka Silva & Ramesh Madushan all of the NICU/PBU, except the last two members who were from the Surgical ICU.
While at the LRH ambulance wheel was R.M. Dinesh Dileeka with helper J.K.L. Pushpakumara, it was K.M. Duminda Jayasekara in the DMH ambulance and helper B.M. Lashantha Disanayake.
Dr Santhushitha Senapathi
LRH’s Section Matron Jayasinghe and PBU night-duty Nursing Officers H.M.K.D. Herath and R.A.V.P. Kumari had sorted out and packed the essentials needed for the mission.
Very much a part of the arrangements was Chilaw Hospital’s Deputy Director Dr. Dinesh Koggalage, who had been in Colombo for an administration session and was “stuck”, unable to get back to his station.
For the LRH team, initially, the plan had been to proceed to Negombo, scramble into boats and head to Chilaw, but Dr. Koggalage had advised against that as it was a fair distance from the coast to the hospital.
He had urged them to proceed by road and that’s what the two ambulances did – until they arrived in Kochchikade, impassable due to heavy flooding. With Dr. Koggalage looking at the next best option of sending them by air from the Katunayake Air Force base, it had been a wata-ravuma (circuitous) journey for the ambulances as the airport road was also blocked.
Even on arrival at Katunayake, the challenges were not over – most of the choppers were on rescue missions across the country and just one, a Bell 412 helicopter, had returned from a “recce” (reconnaissance) flight over Negombo, according to the SLAF Media Division. This chopper too was chock-a-block with relief supplies.
To the dismay of all, weight issues and the inclement weather prevented the two vital, large portable incubators and two portable ventilators being loaded on even after the supplies had been cleared. The whole team also could not get air borne.
Thinking on their feet, the LRH team had then decided that just three of them, Dr. Rathnagoda, Dr. Wijesundara and Nursing Officer Bandara, would get on the flight along with two hand-operated neopuff resuscitators to deliver vital oxygen to the babies along with oxygen cylinders and warm blankets to wrap them up, as well as two large baby bath basins they had brought along.
Explaining their dilemma, Dr. Rathnagoda says that normally when transporting premature babies, it is essential to do so in incubators. Otherwise, deadly hypothermia (a dangerous drop in the babies’ temperature) could cause long-term complications such as intra-cerebral haemorrhage (bleeding into the brain) and pulmonary haemorrhage (bleeding into the lungs).
Sleeping without a care, the baby boy at the LRH’s NICU. Pic by M.A. Pushpa Kumara
As the chopper took off from Katunayake around 1 p.m., manned by two pilots and two gunners and no other SLAF personnel, so as to make room for the medical team and their stuff, the Sunday Times understands that there was a pall of mist and a podi wessak (mild rain).
As it neared Chilaw, the whole area was a sea of water. There was simply no place to land and it had been after a sweeping search that the pilots spotted a small piece of dry ground near the police station and amaruven land karey (landed with difficulty). The gale-force winds had spewed sand all over the area, making the landing very risky.
Quick coordination had then resulted in the babies, tended and accompanied by a Chilaw Hospital team, being ferried halfway by a police dinghy and then gently loaded onto to a high truck to be safely delivered to the chopper.
Taking over, the three-member LRH team had then wrapped them up well in the warm blankets and carefully placed them not in incubators but the two basins.
There was also an unexpected addition – a 15-year-old girl with a severe leg injury who had been rescued by a team including doctors from an area close by, brought by the people along with her mother.
And so, the pilots of the Bell 412 with its precious babies had taken off gingerly, as the doctors manually pumped oxygen into premature lungs and the gunners held tight the tied up oxygen cylinders so that they would not get thrown around!
“Usually, we need two doctors to operate each hand-held neopuff and two nurses to monitor the vitals of the babies but we managed,” says Dr. Rathnagoda simply.
After a nail-biting journey of around 25 minutes, the moment the chopper landed at Katunayake around 3.30 p.m., the 15-year-old had been taken by ambulance to the Colombo North Teaching Hospital, Ragama, and the babies whisked in 12 minutes to the LRH.
While the little boy is now out of the ventilator and only on oxygen support, the little girl will need a few more days in the ventilator. The boy’s father had paid him a visit and gone back home, while the girl’s mother is at the LRH.
The outcome for both babies is good, says Dr. Rathnagoda, adding that the team was not scared about the helicopter journey with buffeting winds, they were just “desperate” to rescue the babies.
A high-risk mercy mission has ended, bringing joy to two humble families and uplifting the mood
of Sri Lankans.
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