Apollo Hospitals' Chief Operating Officer Subbiah Viswanathan told the Arumughaswamy Commission of Inquiry looking into the death of former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa that the Greams Road hospital's CCTV cameras were functioning during the time of her admission.
During examination by the Commission's lawyers S. Parthasarathy and N. Rajagopalan, Dr. Viswanathan said that the hospital had switched off the cameras occasionally after a request from a government official.
The Commission has asked Dr. Viswanathan to provide the officer's name within seven days and the written request from the official.
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“As far as I know, CCTV recording was not stopped after Amma's (Jayalalithaa) admission to the hospital,” said the Apollo COO.
On the request from the government official, the security officer of the hospital issued orders to stop the recording on certain occasions.
“When Amma was transferred for various check-ups or when she was moved to a different room, the cameras were switched off,” he said.
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Dr. Viswanathan told the Commission that he did not know whether the hospital had preserved the nearly two-year-old CCTV footage.
Footage sought
In a separate development, Justice Arumughaswamy on Thursday wrote to Apollo Hospitals Chairman Prathap C. Reddy, asking him to submit within a week the CCTV footage from the hospital during Jayalalithaa’s admission.
On March 22, Mr. Reddy said that the hospital had switched off all cameras in the intensive care unit during Jayalalithaa's admission. “Unfortunately, we switched off all the cameras. All other patients were diverted [from the ICU] and only one or two rooms were used. We removed the footage,” this newspaper quoted him as saying.
Dr. Viswanathan was confronted with the differences in Jayalalithaa's condition as recorded in the hospital's press releases issued in his name during her stay in the hospital and the treatment summary file.
He was asked why, for example, the hospital said that the then-Chief Minister was stable after being admitted with fever and dehydration on September 23, 2016 when the December 7, 2016 summary said that Jayalalithaa was in a critical condition. “That press release was true, I signed it. It was given out after Amma's admission,” said Dr. Viswanathan.
He said that he had merely signed off on press releases drafted by the medical team.
He added that a review team looked at these press releases. The team comprised chief secretary P. Rama Mohana Rao and health secretary J. Radhakrishnan.
The Commission has asked the Apollo COO to submit the list of all the members of the team responsible for drafting the press releases.