Chapter 121 - Heavy Postpartum Hemorrhage (1/2)

Chapter 121: Heavy Postpartum Hemorrhage

Yang Lei darted to the ward, and Zheng Ren saw the son of the middle-aged female patient, who had undergone an appendectomy yesterday, storming out of the ward as if the whole world had upset him.

Perhaps it was not a major issue at all. However, a nurse then yelled, “Chief Zheng, there is an emergency in the obstetrics department!”

“Yang Lei, will you be fine here?” asked Zheng Ren.

“Don’t worry, I’ll handle it. Off you go,” said Yang Lei after glancing at the situation upon reaching the ward entrance.

The obstetrics and gynecology department had recently become greedy. Initially, they rarely had any contact with the emergency department, so they had no choice but to brace for trouble encountered in their own department.

Once they had witnessed the true power of interventional radiology and realized that it could easily achieve great wonders unattainable by surgery alone, they began diverting all sorts of problems to the emergency department.

The chief resident on duty was almost in tears when Zheng Ren arrived at the obstetrics department. “Chief Zheng, please take a look at the patient.”

“Don’t panic, what’s wrong?” asked Zheng Ren.

“Twenty minutes ago, a patient with postpartum hemorrhaging after a caesarean section was transferred from Laohugang. After I finished her registration and examined her, all her family members had disappeared,” said the obstetrics chief resident in terror.

This was actually more common in the emergency department than in the obstetrics department.

Before the abolishment of the one-child policy, every family would treat a primigravida with the utmost care, which was why the possibility of a critically-ill pregnant woman being abandoned in the hospital had never occurred to the obstetrics chief resident.

However, based on years of experience in the medical field, she could tell that she had unknowingly walked a tightrope, and any mismanagement would lead to her inevitable demise.

Zheng Ren asked, “Where is the patient?”

The obstetrics chief resident immediately brought Zheng Ren to the treatment room.

A thick metallic scent a.s.sailed his nostrils before he even reached the door.

Zheng Ren’s heart sank immediately. If he could smell the blood from here, how serious was the patient’s condition?

Quickening his pace, he entered the treatment room and saw an ashen-faced woman lying on a heavily-bloodstained stretcher trolley.

“The patient was transferred to the obstetrics ward twenty minutes ago and was diagnosed with postpartum hemorrhage. Her blood pressure at the time was 50/30mmHg and heart rate was at 132 beats per minute. During physical examination, we removed the v.a.g.i.n.al packing and noticed that the v.a.g.i.n.a—” The obstetrics chief resident, already in distress, was mechanically blurting out medical history as if Zheng Ren was her superior.

Zheng Ren presumed she had many negative outcomes on her mind at the moment.

“Your judgment,” said Zheng Ren.

“This is her second parity. We suspect the heavy postpartum hemorrhage was caused by an unligated uterine artery,” concluded the obstetrics chief resident neatly.

She was already agitated. How was she going to acquire signatures on the informed consent doc.u.ments when the patient’s family had gone missing? Not every clinician knew how to handle this type of situation.

Anonymities were regularly seen in the emergency and general surgery departments, and was thus not considered a serious issue, but in the obstetrics department… This was actually her first time encountering an unidentified patient.

“Prepare for surgery.” Zheng Ren quickly made up his mind as he knew that time was not on their side. “There are a few things that require your immediate attention. First, send blood samples to the blood transfusion department and ask them to speed up blood compatibility tests. We need ten units of red blood cells and 1000mL of plasma, and another set with the same amount as backup.”

The obstetrics chief resident nodded vigorously.

Dazed and confused, all she could do was to obey commands.

“Secondly, call the medical administration division and tell them you’ve received an unidentified patient and failed to obtain informed consent for the operation. I’ll perform the surgery and you’ll handle these processes. Make sure the medical administration division is present on the scene, do you copy?!”

“Got it.” The obstetrics chief resident continued to nod.

“Third, find an obstetrics superior to take it from here,” Zheng Ren finally said.

Everything began to run smoothly as long as someone was in control of the situation. As the patient was being wheeled to the emergency operating theater, Zheng Ren called the interventional radiology suite to prepare the necessary surgical equipment.

Since this was a new project that had only been recently launched, the nurses on duty tonight were unfamiliar with it and could only perform basic tasks.

Zheng Ren had few complaints as the learning process required time. Besides, was it not the wrong time to do so?