Marginal improvement in Soumitra Chatterjee’s health condition: Doctors

The condition of iconic actor Soumitra Chatterjee marginally improved on Thursday though he remained on ventilation as his neurological condition was a matter of concern, one of the attending doctors said in a statement on behalf of the hospital.

"Some progress" with regard to Chatterjees neurological conditions has been made, the doctor said, adding that the 85-year old is again "giving responses though most of them are reflexes. He is much awake now. He is again back to giving responses. But most of them are reflex responses. But not very meaningful communication. He is responding to the voice, spontaneously opening eyes," but he cannot communicate or follow verbal commands, the doctor said.

Referring to the renal condition of the legendary actor, he said "in terms of urine output he is putting up quite a lot. We are conducting dialysis on him on alternate day. His body is a little bit full of fluids and we are getting rid of that, we are also correcting his urea and creatinine count."

Expressing hope once Chatterjee’s kidneys recover fully, he said "We won’t require dialysis on him anymore." Confirming Chatterjee’s infection parameters are better, he said "there was no new fever now while the urine culture report has come negative."

The infectious disease specialist will decide whether to "stop antibiotics and anti-fungal medicines in a few days," the doctor said, adding that "his liver function is good and platelet stable now."

The doctor said Chatterjee’s condition somehow improved on Thursday than what he had been "in past 7-10 days", but struck a note of caution that there are many "pros and cons" for someone under treatment in hospital for a month and infected with covid encephalopathy. "He survived most of the complications. We have to improve his consciousness, his responses are much better and we have to see if he can come out of ventilation, but there are many pros and cons," the doctor said.

"We are consulting if there can be long term airwave support, so it is a mixed bag of good news and bad news," he said.

The Dada Saheb Phalke awardee had been admitted to the medical facility on October 6 after testing positive for COVID-19.

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