Amidst Tensions, Chennai Apollo Shifts Patients To Hyderabad By Air  

Chennai: As tensions rise high at Chennai Apollo hospital where Jayalalithaa is undergoing treatment in a highly critical condition, the management started shifting other patients to different hospitals and some of them to Apollo in Hyderabad by air.

Although Apollo hospitals maintained since Sunday evening that Jayalalithaa was in critical condition, people were not in a position to believe the news as there were different versions of rumors on her health condition everywhere. People started believing something else especiall after the London-based doctor Prof. Richard Beale declared Jaya's health was highly critical.

The Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh took an initiative in the morning to coordinate with the in-charge Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao who flew to Chennai from Mumbai to convene a meeting of the AIADMK legislature party at the hospital. The party MLAs made a resolution electing V. Panneer Selvam who had been the ad-hoc chief minister since Jayalalithaa fell sick on September 22.

Apollo hospitals secured an assurance from all the MLAs not to make any announcement until safety measures are in place at the hospital. Then the hospital started shifting patients to other hospitals in city and some to its Hyderabad facility.

An official announcement on the condition of Jayalalithaa is scheduled at 6.15pm.