After spending almost a month in isolation battling for their lives against the novel coronavirus, India’s oldest COVID-19 positive patients, from Kerala, finally waved goodbye to their doctors and nurses at the hospital where they made a full recovery.
The elderly couple— 93-year-old Thomas and 88-year-old Mariyamma— from Pathanamthitta, left the hospital on Friday after testing negative for the virus two times.
They were discharged from the Kottayam Medical College hospital on Friday evening after receiving a heartwarming farewell from their team of staff and trainee nurses, who helped them board the ambulance which would drive them to their house in Ranni.
“We cared for them like children during the time they were in isolation. They would occasionally throw tantrums demanding that they see each other (they were put up in separate wards initially). Sometimes, they would fight with us, get upset and refuse to sleep. Other times, they would not eat food and demand that food be brought from their house in Pathanamthitta,” senior nurses recalled to the media.
It was only on March 9 that Thomas and Mariyamma were shifted to the Kottayam Medical college from the Pathanamthitta district hospital where they were first admitted.
The elderly couple had contracted the virus from their son, daughter-in-law and 16-year-old grandson, the index patients who had returned from Italy and tested positive for the virus. All of them live together in Ranni, Pathanamthitta.
As soon as they were moved to Kottayam, Thomas’s health took a beating after he suffered a heart attack. The 93-year-old had to be moved to the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital where he was on ventilator support. A heart patient, Thomas also had major difficulty in breathing.
Over several days, the team of doctors, staff and trainee nurses took stock of the couple’s health, checking their status every six hours.
While the team was allowed only for hours hours inside the isolation ward, one trainee nurse would stay the night to monitor the couple.
Recounting a message from a colleague who had night duty at the elderly couple’s isolation ward, a senior nurse from the hospital said, “The nurse texted me that Apooppan and Ammoomma had slept peacefully today. She had been singing lullabies for them through the night.”
After spending a few days in the ICU, Thomas beat all odds and began to recover slowly. Once he was taken off the ventilator, the first thing he demanded was to meet Mariyamma, nurses recounted to the media.
The doctors finally agreed to the couple’s demands and shifted them to a VIP isolation ward where they could see and spend time with each other.
Three days ago, on March 31, the couple’s second sample too tested negative for the virus. Against all odds, they had finally recovered from a virus which was deadly for most people in their age group.
On Friday, after a thorough health check to rule out other complications, the team of doctors at the Kottayam Medical College finally bid farewell to the couple.
As the media thronged the hospital to get a good glimpse of the duo, Thomas and Mariyamma thanked their doctors and waved goodbye to their nurses and the media before leaving for Ranni.