Babu forcefully shifted to ICU

Taking a serious note on the health condition of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief N Chandrababu Naidu’s health condition, whose fast for the cause of farmers entered seventh day, the state government on Thursday directed the doctors in Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences to shift Naidu to Intensive Care Unit and administer intravenous fluids, by force if necessary, immediately.

The government orders came after NIMS doctors said that Mr Naidu may slip into coma if he was not given treatment ‘immediately’. Following the directions, Mr Naidu was shifted to the DR Ward in the ICU on the first floor of the hospital by the doctors, who also tried to administer medicines and saline to him. However Mr Naidu is still believed to be resisting the doctors’ attempts and was refusing treatment.

According to the doctors attending on him at the NIMS, Mr Naidu’s blood pressure and blood sugar levels are nearing dangerous levels. The doctors added that if Mr Naidu did not take fluids, his condition is likely to deteriorate further and he may slip into coma within two hours.

A panel of doctors monitoring the TDP chief’s condition have been trying, in vain, to forcibly give the former chief minister liquid nutrients. Mr Naidu’s close associates and family members, wife Bhuvaneswari Devi and son Lokesh, have also reportedly tried to convince him to take liquid food, but he has refused so far. Earlier, when Mr Naidu had resisted efforts to shift him to the ICU, the doctors had converted his room into an ICU.

The TDP supremo had been on hunger strike since December 17, demanding adequate compensation to the farmers, who had lost crops in successive recent natural calamities.