A Jamaican farmer who had a life-threatening case of leptospirosis is thankful for healing, following a pioneering intervention by doctors at Health City Cayman Islands.
Clester Christie came to Grand Cayman for work but fell seriously ill a few days after his arrival. Fortunately for the 31-year old, Dr. Nelson Iheonunekwu, an Internal Medicine and Nephrology Specialist at the Health Services Authority (HSA), recognized Christie's vitals were falling fast and quickly referred him to the East End, Grand Cayman facility.
At Health City, doctors confirmed the HSA's diagnosis that Christie was suffering from a complication of the zoonotic bacterial infection Leptospirosis, called Leptospirosis Pulmonary Hemorrhagic Syndrome, which is a rare bacterial disease that forms blood clots in the lungs of the afflicted.
Dr. Binoy Chattuparambil, Chief Cardiac Surgeon and Senior Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgeon at Health City, accepted the emergency case from Dr. Iheonunekwu.
"He came here [and at] that time he was in a very critical stage. I would say his oxygen level, his saturation level was in the 50s, so if he stayed like that a few more hours he would have arrested ... within half an hour we took him to the operating room," Dr. Chattuparambil said.
The Health City team hooked Christie up to an Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) machine via the venovenous route to support his lungs, marking the first time Health City doctors had used ECMO in this manner. For previous patients, ECMO had been used to support both the heart and lungs.
