Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Double Lung Transplants Saving Lives Of COVID Patients
The New York Times: A Covid Patient Goes Home After A Rare Double Lung Transplant
The last thing that Mayra Ramirez remembers from the emergency room at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago is calling her family to say she had Covid, was about to be put on a ventilator and needed her mother to make medical decisions for her. Ms. Ramirez, 28, did not wake up for more than six weeks. And then she learned that on June 5, she had become the first Covid patient in the United States to receive a double-lung transplant. On Wednesday, she went home from the hospital. (Grady, 7/30)
AP: COVID Patient Didn't Recognize Body After Double Transplant
A Chicago woman who last month became the nation’s first COVID-19 patient to undergo a double lung transplant said Thursday that she woke up days later, unaware about the surgery and unable to “recognize my body.” Mayra Ramirez said that before she fell ill she was an independent, active person who moved from North Carolina to Chicago in 2014 to work as a paralegal. She said she had an autoimmune condition, but was otherwise healthy. She had gone on a three-mile run shortly before becoming ill and heading for the hospital. “I was told to hurry up (and) change,” she said. (7/31)
Chicago Tribune: ‘Everything Happened So Quickly’: COVID-19 Patients Who Were First In U.S. To Undergo Double Lung Transplants At Northwestern Share Their Stories
In June, [Mayra] Ramirez became the first COVID-19 patient in the U.S. to undergo a double lung transplant after her lungs were severely damaged by the disease. Ramirez and Brian Kuhns — a Lake Zurich man who was the second COVID-19 patient to receive a double lung transplant — spoke publicly about their experiences for the first time at a news conference at Northwestern on Thursday. Such transplants aren’t right for every critically ill COVID-19 patient, but can be a lifeline for some, said Dr. Ankit Bharat, chief of thoracic surgery and surgical director of the Northwestern Medicine Lung Transplant Program. (Schencker, 7/30)
In related news —
WJXT/WCWJ: UF Health Shands Has Successful Double-Lung Transplant On COVID-19 Survivor
A first-of-its-kind procedure in the Southeast — a double-lung transplant — by UF Health Shands Hospital has given a COVID-19 survivor a second chance at life. The patient, a man in his 50s from Texas, tested positive for COVID-19 in April and the virus significantly damaged his lungs. Once it became clear that the damage from the virus to the lungs was permanent, a double transplant option was put on the table. UF Health said it was the first successful surgery of its kind in the Southeast region on a patient who has survived COVID-19. (Barney, 7/30)
