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September 02, 2020 at 05:49PM
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A 1000 rupee gadget is keeping tab on COVID numbers - 1000 rupee saviour - Economic Times
"gadget" - Google News
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According to a report by Reuters, twice a day, New Delhi health worker Kamal Kumari receives a flurry of WhatsApp messages from coronavirus patients, containing either a two-digit reading from a tiny medical device or a photo of its glowing display. She scans the numbers from the 1,000 rupee oxygen monitor, known as pulse oximeter, checking to ensure they are all above the prescribed 95 mark and then notes them down in her logbook.
Delhi's government has so far distributed pulse oximeters to more than 32,000 people for free, putting them at the heart of a plan to isolate most asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic coronavirus patients in their homes. The programme was devised in May, when coronavirus cases started surging in the densely populated city of 20 million, sending panicked residents rushing to hospitals.
In Delhi, health authorities started noticing "happy hypoxemia" - low blood oxygen levels without any breathlessness - that was leading to complications in coronavirus patients isolated at home, Jain said. For regular monitoring, doctors told Delhi's health minister, Satyendar Jain, that patients would either have to visit hospitals or use the inexpensive oxygen monitors, many of which are made in China.
Some doctors are concerned that patients may not always know how to use the device. "It's very important to train patients properly on how to use pulse oximeters," said Dr Hemant Kalra, a pulmonologist in New Delhi, adding that cheap, sub-standard oximeters flooding the market were also a problem. Oximeters have also helped cut down on expensive hospitalisation for mild cases, Jain said, saving more than 10 times the device's price for each day in hospital.
On a warm, humid day last week, health worker Kumari pulled on a protective suit, a mask and goggles, before walking down the narrow lanes of the Chirag Delhi neighbourhood. Together with a similarly dressed colleague, she stopped at Satish Kumar Soni's home to check on him and three family members who were ending their 10-day isolation period, and to collect two government-issued pulse oximeters. "It's not that big a disease," he said. "If the oxygen level is fine, then there isn't much danger."
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