Jayalalithaa shifted from ICU to special room

Chennai: Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalithaa, who had been undergoing treatment at the Intensive Critical Care Unit of the Apollo Hospitals for the last 57 days,  was shifted to high dependency intensive care room on Saturday, leading to celebration among party cadre and functionaries.

Party cadre who gathered before the hospital on Greams Road danced in delight and celebrated the good news. They distributed sweets and shouted slogans like ‘long live Puratchi Thalaivi’ in joy. The leader admitted to the hospital on September 22 was shifted to the room, a tweet from the AIADMK website confirmed. The tweet said “Puratchi Thalaivi Amma shifted from ICU to normal ward in Apollo Hospital today.”

According to hospital sources, shifting to the room marks an improvement as it denotes stability. Patients in intensive care unit would be under round the clock monitoring as their key parameters would keep fluctuating. A patient will be normally shifted to a private room only after ascertaining that their parameters are stable.

Arrangements were made from the morning to shift the Chief Minister to a personalised room, which would have the facilities of an ICU, including respiratory support, according to sources. Besides, dieticians would have a major role in private rooms, indicating that the Chief Minister has begun taking food. In critical care units, the hospital bars people from visiting the patient, while the individual patients are allowed to decide on meeting people.

Apollo Hospitals chairman Prathap C. Reddy, had, in a press conference on Friday, also stated that the Chief Minister’s mental functions are absolutely normal and that she can leave for home as and when she wants to.