Former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa was rushed to hospital on 22 September and spent over 75 days there, until she succumbed to a cardiac arrest and died on 5 December. Opposition leader Stalin and few others demanded that the state government should release a white paper on the treatment meted out to Jayalalithaa.

Interestingly, a day after Chinnamma Sasikala was nominated as new chief minister of Tamil Nadu, British doctor Richard Beale who treated Jayalalithaa in the hospital revealed important details of the former CM’s deteriorating health and the treatment provided to her in the situations kept secret till now. 

Beale and other doctors made the following revelations in a press press briefing today:

Beale said that Jayalalithaa was conscious while she was brought in an ambulance from her home in Chennai’s Poes Garden to the city’s Apollo Hospital on the night of September 22 last year. Different theories had been floating since months now speculating the condition in which Jayalalithaa was taken to the hospital.

Jayalalithaa was admitted for fever and dehydration and put on ventilator occasionally in the hospital. She also interacted with people often.

P Balaji of Madras Medical College and K Babu of Apollo Hospitals had signed in election forms on which her thumb impression was taken, Beale said. The said affidavit was taken for nominating party candidates for elections in two seats and a bypoll contest last year.

Beale said that there was possibility of sepsis, which is the body’s response to an infection, to have spread fast across Jayalalithaa’s body and caused damage to other organs. Beale added, however, that Jayalalithaa had shown signs of recovery and that she was responding to the treatment.

Beale said that the doctors were not clear on the source of the infection but found after repeated tests that the infection was, indeed, present in her blood. “So bacteria were going from the blood and that was where the infection was identified and resulted in her general poor condition.”
Jayalalithaa was known to be a patient of diabetes and high blood pressure.