Dr Asif Iqbal, (Critical Care Medicine Specialist)

Common people’s idea is to raise the hospital bill or to put the patient on ventilation. But science says otherwise. The medical name of the device with the help of artificial breathing is a ventilator. In any serious physical condition, people’s ability to breathe normally decreases. At this time, artificial respiration has to be maintained to save the patient’s life.

This life-giving machine was originally invented to save the lives of polio sufferers. From 1928 to 1952, the death rate of polio patients was very high. In 1928, two doctors named Philip Drinker and Louis Agassiz from the Boston School of Public Health invented the first mechanical ventilator called the Iron Lung. Much later, in 1952, the polio epidemic began in Copenhagen. At Blagdam Hospital there, 87% of polio patients were dying of respiratory muscle failure. At that time, an anaesthesiologist named Ion Ibsen developed the modern ventilator in August 1952. The death rate from polio dropped to 11% within a year of using the self-made ventilator. Then with the advancement of technology came the modern ventilators. With its help, countless people are being brought back from the face of death.

  • In case of serious injury in road traffic accident,
  • Pneumonia,
  • If you have various lung diseases including COPD,
  • If the patient’s condition becomes critical due to a serious infection like septicemia,
  • In case of severe heart attack or brain stroke,
  • If bitten by a poisonous snake,
  • A ventilator may be used to manage the patient’s condition during critical surgery.

The question that arises in most people’s minds is how likely it is that the patient will recover from this ventilator. Whether the patient can recover from the ventilator depends on the overall physical condition of the person. In many cases, the patient gets better. And in some cases, there is no possibility of recovery. While treating a patient on a ventilator, multiple tests are required along with life-sustaining drugs. It is quite costly. So the patient is put on a ventilator only with the consent of the patient’s relatives. If unable to cope with the cost shock, he requested to remove the patient from the ventilator. The patient cannot be taken out of the ventilator at will. This life-giving machine can be opened only when the patient recovers or dies, this is the law. But one thing should be known the story of putting people on ventilators after they die and increasing the bill is completely fabricated. Because the ventilator can only keep breathing going. When a man dies, he cannot be kept alive.

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