Kajal Parmar, a 25-year-old deaf and mute woman from Rajkot who suffered from Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), was treated successfully by the expert team of doctors and nurses at GCS Hospital.
Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) is a rare neurological disorder that attacks the immune system of the body and the nervous system. The disease is so rare that it affects only about one person in every 100,000. As the disease progresses, many complications arise. Kajalben, a 25-year-old specially-abled woman from a village near Rajkot, experienced the same thing. Both Kajalben and her husband are non-verbal and hearing impaired. Their family was living happily with two young children until the day she suddenly fell sick with a fever. She had a fever at first, but as the illness progressed, she developed many other symptoms, including breathing problems and muscle weakness; she was later diagnosed with GBS.
Her family knocked on many big hospital doors, but GBS had progressed to the point where it was so dangerous to her life that hospitals wouldn’t even take her case. When she came to GCS Hospital with a ray of hope, she was already on ventilator support, had profound paralysis of the whole body, and was completely unconscious. It was a challenging task clinically as well as in terms of communication, as she cannot speak or hear. But Ahmedabad’s GCS Hospital team accepted the challenge to fight against GBS, sepsis, and multi-organ failure. Her illness, GBS, was rapidly progressing, and on arrival at GCS Hospital, she was already on ventilator support and was unable to even move a single finger. She had developed severe levels of infections in her major organs, such as her kidneys, lungs, and blood. During her treatment, she even went into cardiac arrest (her heart stopped), for which she was revived after CPR.
Doctors and nurses put in extra effort by learning to communicate with her, and she was also a fighter, fighting all her illnesses with a smile. Dr. Bhavesh Shah (Sr. Consultant, Intensivist), Dr. Apara Kothiala (Consultant – Neurology), and Dr. Bankimchandra Mankad (Professor – Medicine Dept.) of GCS Hospital worked on their blood, sweat, and tears. With proper nursing care, constant monitoring in the ICU, physiotherapy, and support from her family, she returned to normal condition and was able to breathe on her own after 45 days of ventilator support. In another hospital, her 70-day treatment would have cost her lakhs of rupees, but GCS Hospital provided her with free care through the Ayushman Bharat Yojana (PM-JAY).
Dr. Bhavesh Shah said, “Our team has experienced this for the first time.” It was challenging to communicate with the patient due to her inability to speak and hear. With a lot of patience and care, the entire team has worked hard to treat Kajalben, and now she has survived the disease and is living a healthy new life given to her by doctors at GCS Hospital.”