Jayalalithaa to be shifted to a special room at Apollo Hospitals

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa will be shifted to a special room from the intensive critical care unit at Apollo Hospitals in Chennai on Saturday, sources at the hospital said.

Arrangements were being made to shift her to a personalised room which would have the facilities of an intensive care unit, including respiratory support, they said.

She would continue to be on tracheostomy and so visitors would be restricted, they said.

Sixty-eight-year-old Jayalalithaa was admitted to the hospital on September 22 with complaints of "fever and dehydration." She was later put on respiratory support and treated with antibiotics for infection and lung congestion. She was given passive physiotherapy. A team of doctors from the UK and All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, joined the team of doctors at Apollo Hospitals to treat her. She is on a regular, but high-protein, diet.

On Friday, Apollo Hospitals chairman Dr Prathap C Reddy said she continued to be in the intensive critical care unit as doctors wanted to keep her infection-free in view of her very low resistance. She continued to be on respiratory support for a few minutes every day so that the lungs would not collapse, he said.