An interventional cardiologist with Apollo Hospitals on Monday told the Commission of Inquiry probing Jayalalithaa’s death that doctors had suspected that the former Chief Minister had developed a fresh infection of the lung the day before she suffered a cardiac arrest.
Sources said that Y. Vijayachandra Reddy, who appeared as a witness, told the Justice A. Arumughaswamy (retd.) Commission that he had observed that Jayalalithaa had thick sputum on December 3, 2016. The team of doctors from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, who had been visiting Jayalalithaa, was also with him.
The thick sputum had been first observed earlier, at 4.10 p.m.; the late Chief Minister had been prescribed antibiotics by Apollo doctors as a result. Till that point, Jayalalithaa remained cured of the bacterial infection detected immediately after her admission: there was no trace of enterococcus bacteria in her blood after November 15, 2016.
Jayalalithaa’s treatment summary, released by Apollo Hospitals, makes a mention of the fresh infection. The late Chief Minister’s blood and tracheal secretions were sent for culture, but she suffered a cardiac arrest before results could be obtained. While Jayalalithaa’s cough and tracheal secretions had increased on December 3, she vomited after breakfast the next morning and exhibited breathlessness before suffering a cardiac arrest at 4.20 p.m. On Monday, Dr. Reddy told the Commission that Dr. Samin K. Sharma, who recommended that an angiogram be performed on Jayalalithaa, had not taken into account other factors.
No ARDS, says judge
Sources said that at one point during Dr. Reddy’s deposition, Justice Arumughaswamy informed the court that he was in possession of a letter from a doctor — in a sealed envelope — stating that Jayalalithaa did not have Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome.
ARDS was among the three causes of the CM’s death; Richard Beale, the London-based intensivist who treated her, was among the 20 collaborators of the task force that recommended the Berlin Definition that helps identify ARDS.
