Apollo hospital points to bloopers, asks Jayalalithaa panel to rope in doctors to crack medical terms

The Apollo Hospitals in Chennai has petitioned the commission probing the death of J Jayalalithaa to rope in specialists to examine the voluminous medical records of the late Tamil Nadu chief minister and help it arrive at a decision.

Citing medical terminology bloopers in recording the depositions of doctors, the hospital, in a petition on Friday, December 28, also sought the Justice A Arumughaswamy Commission to constitute an expert panel of doctors.

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The depositions of the witnesses, including those of the doctors, were recorded in Tamil by the commission. The bloopers included "enterococcus", a bacteria, getting into the commission's records as "endocarditis" (inflammation of the endocardium and heart valves), the hospital pointed out.

"...there are multiple mistakes as far as medical terminologies are concerned. Translating terms into Tamil from English is going to be a big challenge," counsel Maimoona Badsha, who represents the hospital before the commission, said.

Mistakes in depositions were a big thing and it completely changed the meaning, she said, adding that such errors were pointed out in the petition.

"Our submission was that if the commission wants to examine the medical records...including watching CDs, looking at X-rays, analysing bio-chemistry reports, ECG and EEG reports, it needs to have a medical panel of specialists," Badsha told PTI.

She said since there were mistakes in the depositions recorded by the commission, it definitely needed the support of a "medical board of calibre" to help it come to a decision.

Jayalalithaa had a complex matrix of diseases and the Apollo Hospitals had a team of about 40 eminent doctors, including 17 from outside the hospital, to take care of her, she added. Commission sources declined to comment on the hospital's plea. Jayalalithaa was treated in the hospital for 75 days before she died on December 5, 2016.

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The Tamil Nadu government had, in September last year, set up the Arumughaswamy Commission, following suspicions expressed by various quarters over the circumstances of the former chief minister's death.

The panel's terms of reference were to inquire into the circumstances leading to the hospitalisation of Jayalalithaa on September 22, 2016, and the treatment provided by the hospital to her till her death.

The commission had invited all those who had "personal knowledge and direct acquaintance" in the matter to furnish information to it.