Richard Beale, a doctor from the UK who treated late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, dispelled rumours regarding her death, stating she was diagnosed with sepsis and died of cardiac arrest.
Jayalalithaa was admitted in Apollo Hospitals on September 22, for fever and dehydration. She was later diagnosed with sepsis and was on the road to recovery when she died of cardiac arrest on December 5. During the period she was in hospital, her condition and treatment were kept under wraps leading to rumours over her death.
Beale told media persons that Jayalalithaa suffered sepsis, which is a serious infection that provokes inflammatory response in the body, resulting in shortness of breath for which she was admitted in the hospital.
Jayalalithaa was under non-invasive ventilation in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for about a week after her admission to the hospital. About 10 days later, tracheotomy was performed on her. Physiotherapy was recommended and she was responding to the treatment well till the time of cardiac arrest at 5 pm on December 4 in the presence of her visiting doctor. When she did not respond to cardiopulmonary resuscitation, she was put on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). She was declared dead on December 5.
Babu Abraham, Senior consultant in ICU and Critical care, Apollo Hospitals, said, “When a patient is on ECMO we usually give 24 hours time to see if the heart will start or not. The decision to pull her off from ECMO was a collective decision taken by all physicians who were treating her.” The entire treatment cost about ₹5.5 crore. Sudha Seshayyan , Director of Anatomy, Madras Medical College, who did embalming on Jayalalithaa’s body, said it was a normal practice to embalm a VIP’s body as it had to be kept for public homage.
The press meet comes two months after Jayalalithaa’s death and a day after VK Sasikala, her confidante, was elected as the AIADMK Legislature Party leader, paving the way for her to be sworn in as Chief Minister.