The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is now off intensive care though he remains in a special room in the ICU of the All India Institue of Medical Sciences mostly for security reasons.
The doctors treating him said that intensive care, which comprises monitoring of a patient for certain specific data is no longer being done. He is off all monitoring and he is like any other patient who can move about in their wards, said Dr Sampath Kumar, who is head of the CTVS department of the institute and leading the team treating the Prime Minister.
He said the Prime Minister can move about but he cannot go out for security reasons. We are keeping him in the ICU rather than shift him also for the same reasons.
The President Pratibha Patil today called on the family members of the Prime Minister who is yet to begin receiving visitors. She spent some time with the family. According to an official statement released today, the Prime Minister has begun taking regular meals. All catheters have been removed and he is moving freely in his room. He is being provided physiotherapy and cardiac rehab to support speedy mobilisation. He read the newspapers today morning and also held discussions with his aide. He also made enquiries about funeral arrangements for former President R Venkatraman who died yesterday, it said.
Dr Manmohan Singh is keen on returning to work early and doctors are confident that he can do so since his recovery so far has been excellent, the statement said.
Reports said that the Prime Minister was enjoying the poetry of Ghalib as he spent his fifth day in the institute. The decision to shift the Prime Minister out of the ICU was taken by a team of doctors led by Dr Sampath Kumar and which included his personal physician Dr K S Reddy and repeat bypass surgeon Dr Ramakant Panda from Mumbai's Asian Heart Institute (AHI).
Agencies quoted Dr Vijay D'Silva, an ICU specialist also from AHI and attending on the Prime Minister, saying that "His is a speedy recovery in the expected time frame".