MGR's health was worse, don't compare with Jaya's: Ex health minister hits back at Karunanidhi

Dr HV Hande was in charge of briefing the press when then Chief Minister MG Ramachandran was hospitalised in 1984.
MGR's health was worse, don't compare with Jaya's: Ex health minister hits back at Karunanidhi
MGR's health was worse, don't compare with Jaya's: Ex health minister hits back at Karunanidhi
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No comparison should be made between the hospitalisation of MGR with Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, says former Health Minister Dr HV Hande, who was in charge of briefing the press when then Chief Minister MG Ramachandran was hospitalised.

Hande was referring to MGR’s stint in Apollo Hospital in Chennai for a stroke in 1984, and his remarks come a day after DMK President M Karunanidhi said the Tamil Nadu government has a responsibility to inform the people about the Chief Minister’s health.

Dr Hande flanked by MGR and Jayalalithaa (Image courtesy:  Facebook/Hande) 

The DMK patriarch had also advised the Tamil Nadu government to draw lessons from former Chief Minister MG Ramachandran’s stint at Apollo Hospitals, when regular updates about his health were released by Dr Hande.  

“That situation was different from this,” says Dr Hande to The News Minute. Calling MGR’s hospitalisation “a major problem” back then, he recounts that the then chief minister was admitted to Apollo Hospital in Chennai on October 6, 1984.

MGR had been rushed to the hospital following kidney failure. While he was on dialysis, he suffered a stroke on October 16. Hande recalls that a small committee was constituted and he, as the health minister in MGR’s cabinet, was nominated to brief the press on the chief minister’s health.

Unlike MGR’s health condition at the time, Hande points out that Jayalalithaa has been admitted with a fever and dehydration, as stated by the hospital. Despite the wild speculation and rumour mongering around Jayalalithaa’s health, the former two-time cabinet minister says the medical bulletins released by Apollo Hospitals are enough.

Dr Hande with Jayalalithaa (Image courtesy: Facebook/Hande) 

Hande also pointed out that when Karunanidhi was admitted in hospital when he was Chief Minister, there was little update from the state government. He says this was also true when then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee underwent a knee surgery in 2000. “It was the hospital that gave a statement then, and not the government,” he notes.  

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