A 76-year-old female resident of Fai Fu Building, a locked-down building (“Red Code Zone”) in Fai Chi Kei district, suffered an acute ischemic stroke on Monday at around 8 p.m. and was immediately rushed by ambulance to the public Conde de São Januário Hospital Centre for emergency surgery, the Health Bureau (SSM) said in a statement yesterday.
Acute ischemic stroke, according to Medscape, “is caused by thrombotic or embolic occlusion of a cerebral artery and is more common than haemorrhagic stroke”.
The statement noted that the patient developed symptoms such as hemiplegia, aphasia and unconsciousness, requiring her to be immediately admitted to hospital to undergo vascular interventional surgery.
Hemiplegia is defined as paralysis on one side of the body. Aphasia, meanwhile, is the “inability to comprehend or formulate language because of damage to specific brain regions”, according to Wikipedia.
A contingency plan was activated, with the patient immediately transported to the public Conde de São Januário Hospital Centre via the “special green channel”, and its stroke team performed interventional surgery in line with established procedures, the statement pointed out.
The statement underlined that the woman has successfully recovered and is currently in a stable condition. Moreover, the expected therapeutic effect have been achieved, while the results of the patient’s rapid antigen tests (RATs) and nucleic acid tests (NATs) taken on Monday and yesterday were all negative.
Meanwhile, the bureau emphasised that the hospital has continued to provide various emergency specialised medical services “without interruption” throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, pointing out that the hospital “never turns any patient away or delays rescue for any reason”.
The statement added that the hospital has specific response plans in place for patients of different risk levels, regardless of if they are COVID-19 cases or holders of red or yellow Macau Health Codes. To ensure patient and personnel safety, all personnel work in line with the established standard infection control procedures to enable the provision of appropriate treatment to patients.
This handout photo taken on Monday and provided yesterday by the Health Bureau (SSM) shows the Conde de São Januário Hospital Centre’s stroke team performing emergency surgery on a 76-year-old female resident of Fai Fu Building.
