Ukraine fights coronavirus

In Kharkiv, doctors have contrived a way to save COVID-19 patients using an ordinary plastic bag This method, which was used in the 90s to save hundreds of patients, has come in handy again amid the critical shortage of ventilators The Kharkiv Regional Children’s Hospital for Infectious Diseases has still not received additional ventilators They only have seven. So doctors pieced together a makeshift for the so much needed device. Tetyana Dotsyak reports This is how Bubble CPAP works How are you feeling? Good. With more than 30,000 views on YouTube and as many shares on Facebook daily, this video, that is only of interest to medical professionals, has become viral. Doctors from across the country are thanking their colleagues from Kharkiv for sharing the clue Even foreigners are asking to translate the video from Ukrainian and make it available for free use.

01:01 - The author, Volodymyr Korsunov, an anesthesiologist in Kharkiv, admits he didn’t expect so much feedback. Why? I think it’s quite simple: there’s just not enough of assisted breathing equipment… He says such a device saved hundreds of young patients’ lives in the nineties. Mechanical ventilation at the time was such poor quality that patients developed many complications on it and often even died. Later on, children were placed on Bubble CPAP.

01:28 - This is the same as what they do in Europe, except they use factory-made equipment. This type of device from a medical equipment manufacturer would cost thousands of dollars. That’s why the doctors crafted together a Ukrainian analogue, which only cost them a few dozen dollars or so. To construct our system, we use a plastic bag and special adapters. Two holes are made in the bag: one for the oxygen tube, the other one to exhale carbon dioxide.

02:02 - Most importantly, such bags should be made of a high quality, non-toxic, transparent polyethylene grade that holds the required pressure. Now let’s seal off the oxygen. The bag is fitted around the neck tightly to keep the oxygen from coming out. The patient is breathing and the depth to which the tubing is immersed underwater determines the pressure generated in the airways. As the gas flows through the system, it “bubbles” out and prevents buildup of excess pressures, the doctors explain. Hence the name ‘bubble therapy’. This therapy works for patients who are conscious and are able to breathe on their own, but who aren’t getting sufficient amount of oxygen in their system due to the damage caused to their lungs by pneumonia.

02:57 - The doctors are estimating that about fifteen percent of COVID patients will require Bubble CPAP therapy. So this simple invention may become a life-saver for thousands of people. Tetyana Dotsyak Ihor Tambiyev ICTV Facts .