bangalore this only goes to show how multiple medical problems of a poor patient can be handled in a small community health care centre if specialists and super specialists will it for munilaxmi a labourer from a village near hosur the birth of a son and their staying alive is nothing short of a miracle but in many ways it is also a commentary on the magic that can be performed by medicine if it is delivered on time when munilaxmi became pregnant little did she know the danger lurking for herself and the child that she was expecting all was well till two months ago when she developed progressively increasing headaches fits fever and then drowsiness then she became paralysed on the left side it was only then that her family members happened to meet dr m parthasarathy who runs a small community health care centre sarathy hospital in ejipura once the investigations were carried the mystery unfolded munilaxmi was not just in an advanced stage of pregnancy eight months but she also had a large collection of pus on the right side of her brain whats worse she had an abnormality of the heart her advanced pregnancy ruled out any major neurosurgical procedure consultant neuro surgeon dr hv sathish babu carried out a short procedure by which he drilled a small hole into the brain and the pus removed after this she improved significantly and she spoke to the doctors and her relatives she even moved her legs a bit munilaxmi was then seen by a physician cardiologist dr chandrahas who felt that her heart condition could be controlled with medication all the time her mental status and other symptoms showed an improvement and she was able to walk with some support she went home after that three weeks later she was back in sarathy hospital with labour pains gynaecologist at the hospital dr padma saw her and realised that due to her recent problems munilaxmis condition would have to be monitored round the clock however coming from a labourer family did not permit continued luxuries the experts pitched in again we were dealing with two lives here one whom we had already treated before and another yet unborn shifting her to any other hospital with no proper facilities would have been accepting defeat midway without even having tried dr babu says he along with dr chandrahas and paediatrician dr pundalikasha was on standby at sarathy hospital even as munilaxmi was taken in for delivery after all the previous complications that turned out to be a reasonably lame affair a normal delivery and a healthy male child multidisciplinary care in major hospitals still largely remain out of reach for the common man if super speciality intervention is needed it gets even more expensive says dr babu but munilaxmi was lucky whats more the birth of a normal baby has been like the proverbial icing on the cake