Jayalalithaa death probe: 'Medical evaluation should be done by experts,' says Apollo Hospital chief

Chennai: The Chairman of Apollo Hospital Dr PC Reddy on Wednesday said medical evaluation in the ongoing probe on former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's death should be done by medical experts itself.

While referring to the Justice Arumughaswamy Commission which is probing Jayalalithaa's death case, Dr PC Reddy said, "Our request was that medical evaluation should be done by medical experts and that is all we asked. The Supreme Court has said yes."

This comes weeks after the top court stayed proceedings of the Arumughaswamy Commission in connection with the case.

The order was passed by a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi which also comprised Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna in an appeal by the hospital last month.

Popularly known as 'Amma', Jayalalithaa was taken to Chennai's Apollo Hospital on September 22, 2016, where she was treated for 75 days before she breathed her last on December 5.

In September 2017, Justice Arumughaswamy was appointed to head the probe into the death of the former Chief Minister. Over a year later, the hospital demanded the constitution of a medical board comprising doctors and medical professionals to examine Jayalalithaa's medical records.

In an affidavit filed to the Arumughaswamy Commission, the hospital raised the demand saying errors crept in due to the inability of a typist to comprehend and type correct medical terms.

Apollo Hospitals further said that words like 'intubation' were recorded as 'incubation', apart from other fatal errors.