VK Sasikala, a close aide of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, will be shifted to Manipal Hospital on Old Airport Road in Bengaluru. Sasikala, who has tested positive for coronavirus, is currently undergoing treatment at Bengaluru’s Victoria Hospital. According to sources, Sasikala’s family has requested that she be shifted to Manipal Hospital.
As per a hospital bulletin issued by Victoria Hospital on Friday morning, 66-year-old Sasikala is in the COVID-19 trauma Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Victoria Hospital and is being treated for COVID-19 severe pneumonia. The bulletin adds that she has diabetes, hypertension and hypothyroidism.
Sasikala has been lodged in Bengaluru’s Parappana Agrahara jail, which is where she fell ill and was first taken to Bengaluru’s Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital. She had had a fever for two days and suffered from breathlessness, but had no fever when she was hospitalised, the doctors at Bowring hospital had said. Though Sasikala had contracted SARI, her COVID-19 tests had initially returned negative. The family then insisted on a CT scan of the chest which revealed the infection. She was later shifted to Victoria Hospital for further treatment.
Sources close to the 66-year-old had said that her condition is stable and she is being monitored closely. Two of her relatives, both doctors, Sivakumar and Venkatesh, were allowed to visit her. Her nephew and AMMK leader TTV Dhinakaran is also in Bengaluru to monitor his aunt's health.
Sasikala has been lodged at the Bengaluru jail since 2017, serving a four-year sentence following her conviction in the disproportionate assets case. Sasikala is slated to be released from prison on January 27.