Was former CM Jayalalithaa cared for well enough before hospitalisation?

CHENNAI: Former chief minister J Jayalalithaa was in a “semi-conscious state” and had breathing problems along with fever when she was wheeled into Apollo Hospitals on the night of September 22 last year, according to a Tamil TV channel.

The channel disclosed this on Thursday quoting a hospital report and triggered a fresh round of debate and speculation over her hospitalisation and death.

Political parties, including the DMK, quickly reacted to the report seeking a CBI inquiry into the circumstances that led to Jayalalithaa's hospitalisation and the treatment given to her. The report, aired on Puthiya Thalaimurai, has thrown up the most damning piece of 'evidence' to date suggesting an abysmal management of the patient at home, despite her being the Chief Minister with the best possible healthcare facilities available at the click of her fingers.

For instance, the patient-care report, recorded at the time of her admission in Apollo's emergency after being rushed from her Poes Garden bungalow at about 10.25 pm, showed her blood sugar at the super-high level of 508 mg (normal 80-120) and oxygen saturation just 45 per cent (normal 96-99). The blood pressure, though was 140/70, which is not too bad considering that the normal is 120/70 -perhaps drugs forced that artificial control.

“Any patient with such extreme readings would have shown alarming symptoms even days before the crisis struck that night and she slipped into a comatose state. What were the doctors attending on her doing till then? A heart attack or a stroke can happen suddenly but not these sorts of blood sugar and O2 levels, which can happen only over a period of time, rather badly managed time”, said a senior doctor working at a premier government hospital, requesting anonymity “for obvious reasons”.

Recalling that the London doctor Dr Richard Beale had said there was septisemia (infection spreading into blood), the Chennai specialist said that could well mean there was already infection in some organ, such as kidney, and that was left either unattended or poorly managed.

“Another possibility could be hospital-acquired pneumonia, which is highly unlikely in the case of Apollo, where very stringent infection control protocol is maintained”, he said.

The TV channel report said when a team of three doctors and paramedics arrived at the Poes Garden bungalow, they found Jayalalithaa lying in a semi-conscious state in her first floor room. She did not respond to queries. The medical reports say that she had been suffering from pneumonia fever for three days before she was hospitalised,” the channel said.

The TV ‘expose’ has put both the Tamil Nadu Government and Apollo Hospitals in the dock as both had maintained that Jayalalithaa was admitted only with “fever and dehydration.” For the first few days, both the government and Apollo restricted flow of information on Jaya’s health and it became better only after British expert Dr Richard Beale joined the medical team treating her.

The hospital, where Jayalalithaa was treated for 75 days, refused to comment on the TV report, while government sources said they would wait for the report of inquiry commission before commenting on any issues relating to her treatment and demise.

Since the blood sugar level was “dangerously high” and oxygen level “dangerously low”, doctors and political leaders questioned the lack of preparedness on the part of “those who took care of” Jayalalithaa at her residence even when her health had deteriorated.

The report says Apollo Hospitals received a call from Poes Garden residence at 10.01 pm seeking an ambulance, which reached the destination within four minutes. The Chief Minister was shifted to the ambulance from her first floor room at 10.15 pm and it took ten minutes for the vehicle to reach Apollo Hospitals on Greams road, the channel said quoting the report.

The report, however, does not mention any injury on the patient, thus putting to rest allegations that she was ‘pushed by someone’ at her residence and that worsened her health condition.