A woman in the UK who became seriously ill after contracting Covid-19 while 36 weeks pregnant has returned home with her baby after more than a year in hospital.
Nicoleta Tuna, 30, from Colchester in Essex, was not vaccinated when she contracted the coronavirus in October 2021.
Her condition deteriorated rapidly and she was admitted to Colchester Hospital, where her daughter Thea was born by emergency Caesarean section.
Ms Tuna was then placed in an induced coma and in November 2021 she was transferred to Royal Papworth Hospital, a specialist cardiology and lung hospital in Cambridge, for advanced care.
She spent 299 days on an ECMO machine, a specialized intensive care life support machine that pumps oxygen into the patient’s blood, allowing the lungs to rest.
ECMO stands for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, and Ms. Tuna’s 299-day career was the longest in the hospital.
She was woken from her coma in February 2022, when Thea was almost four months old.
Ms. Tuna spent so much time in the hospital that she learned English on the ward, with the help of staff who translated from Romanian.
And she was finally released yesterday, carried from the ward by dozens of NHS staff caring for her.
She was joined by her husband Mike, her son Eduard, six, and her daughter Thea, now one.
Ms Tuna said: “After the C-section I remember nothing. I woke up and was being nursed by a Romanian healthcare support worker, and she spoke to me. I asked her ‘what day is it’ and she said ’22 February 2022′. I couldn’t believe it, it was too much. I was told my chances of survival were very small; nobody expected me to live. I was so, so poorly,” reports RTE.
When Thea was six months old, Ms. Tuna was strong enough to hold her daughter for the first time.
She remained on ECMO support until August 31 and in September the ventilator was slowly turned off and switched to a high flow form of oxygen which she will continue to use at home.
“It has been very difficult as I have not been able to spend time with my daughter or my six-year-old son, but I can now spend the rest of my life with them and my husband thanks to all of the people at Royal Papworth,” said Ms Tuna, reports RTE.
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