A pregnant woman, born in 1989, 19/20 weeks pregnant, was infected with COVID-19 in Sarajevo and developed the most serious type of COVID-19 infection, the acute respiratory stress syndrome. The doctors in Sarajevo told the story to Slobodna Dalmacija and Večernji list, stressing how they were practically unable to help her, as her condition was rapidly worsening and they didn’t have an ECMO machine available to help her. Her pregnancy is currently at the stage where the unborn baby is not viable yet.
The ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) machine is often called the “artificial lungs”, and it helps patients recover by doing most of the work performed by the heart and the lungs in a healthy individual. That way, the patients suffering from serious lung damage can get more time for their organisms to fight the virus (or the bacteria or any other cause) which is causing the damage, in this case – the coronavirus. And COVID-19 is also the reason why the patient needed to be transported to Zagreb, because the only ECMO in Sarajevo was already helping another COVID patient. Luckily, Zagreb Infectious disease hospital “dr. Fran Mihaljević” was ready to accept the patient, and she was transported in a helicopter from the Republic of Srpska army, adding another layer to the obvious dedication to the humanity of everyone involved.
Prof. Ismet Gavrankapetanović, MD, who spoke to Croatian media about the situation, said that from what he knows, the patient’s situation is currently stable and that the doctors in the Zagreb infectious hospital are doing everything they can to save both her and her unborn baby.
