Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan has said that he got a "thumbs up" from for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning when he vis­it­ed him at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day. Khan, who has been in­struct­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to en­sure Man­ning got the best pos­si­ble care at the hos­pi­tal, said the San Fer­nan­do West MP even smiled dur­ing the vis­it. He told mem­bers of the me­dia that the ges­ture was a pos­i­tive in­di­ca­tor of Man­ning's progress. "He is able to at least smile...He has smiled," Khan said.

While his vis­it was very brief, the Health Min­is­ter said Man­ning un­der­stood him. "He could not be con­ver­sant be­cause he is tired...He has gone through a lot," he said. Khan said Man­ning's brain suf­fered an as­sault be­cause of the "cere­bro-vas­cu­lar ac­ci­dent" (stroke). He con­firmed, how­ev­er, that the CT scan showed no ma­jor ar­eas of con­cern for doc­tors. "It is now re­solv­ing, based on the med­ica­tion he is get­ting, so the swelling is de­creas­ing and the pres­sure is un­der con­trol," Khan said. "You will find the neu­rons will start to func­tion at this time, so you will get suc­cess as we go on slow­ly." He said Man­ning might be able to ar­tic­u­late bet­ter once the swelling in his brain went down.

A day af­ter he suf­fered a stroke which left him par­tial­ly paral­ysed on his right side, Man­ning, 65, was re­moved from the hos­pi­tal's In­ten­sive Care Unit (ICU) and placed in the High De­pen­den­cy Unit.

Man­ning is in the care of a med­ical team that in­cludes Dr Kan­ta Ram­cha­ran, neu­rol­o­gist and spe­cial­ist con­sul­tant in in­ter­nal med­i­cine; Dr Neil Bhag­wan­dass, spe­cial­ist in in­ter­nal med­i­cine who was on call when Man­ning was brought in­to the hos­pi­tal's A&E De­part­ment; and Dr Parvind Ra­moutar, a car­di­ol­o­gist and in­ter­nal med­i­cine con­sul­tant.

Khan said strict vis­i­tors' ac­cess re­mains in ef­fect, with on­ly close rel­a­tives be­ing al­lowed at his bed­side. He said they had to "al­low the pa­tient to re­cov­er, rest and al­low the in­jec­tions and treat­ment to kick in."

Strict se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures have been in place at the hos­pi­tal to en­sure the for­mer prime min­is­ter is pro­tect­ed. Khan said Man­ning was go­ing to be at hos­pi­tal for as long as it took and he was in the best hands. Asked about his progress, Khan said it was five per cent bet­ter than on Tues­day and, as with all stroke vic­tims, progress would con­tin­ue slow­ly. He ex­pects about 80 per cent re­cov­ery in the next three to four months. "He has start­ed to swal­low, which is an ex­treme­ly good sign," Khan said. "Ini­tial­ly, in stroke vic­tims, they can­not swal­low be­cause their gag re­flex has gone...His gag re­flex has come back," Khan con­firmed.

Ex­press­ing hope that Man­ning would make a full re­cov­ery, Khan called on the na­tion to of­fer prayers for the Op­po­si­tion MP's re­cov­ery. Khan was able to speak with Man­ning's wife, Hazel, and their sons, Bri­an and David. He al­so met with ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers of the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA), in­clud­ing Chair­man Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, CEO Anil Go­sine, Med­ical Di­rec­tor Dr Lester Goetz and Head of Med­i­cine Dr Kan­ta Ram­cha­ran. "We have giv­en him every sin­gle thing in this hos­pi­tal to make him com­fort­able and I have told Dr Bo­doe, no holds barred," Khan said.

"What­ev­er Mr Man­ning wants, Dr Bo­doe and the SWRHA will be giv­ing to him." PNM's San Fer­nan­do East pro­to­col of­fi­cer Wendy Lewis, who al­so spoke with the me­dia at the hos­pi­tal, ap­pealed to vis­i­tors to re­spect the wish­es of the doc­tors. "This is all for Mr Man­ning's ben­e­fit...We need him to get well," she said. "We need the doc­tors to be able to do their jobs.