“He is currently at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) on ventilator,” said Chief of the Cardiology Department at the hospital Dr Bharat Rawat. “He is unconscious but is able to cough and moves limbs sometimes. He is making urine and his blood pressure is being maintained. His heartbeat has is still not back but he is currently stable on the pacemaker,” Dr Rawat said, adding that the next 48 hours would be very critical.[break]
The 84-year-old leader, who had participated and addressed the mass gathering at Khullamanch organized by 22 opposition parties on Friday, fell unconscious
during a joint meeting of RJP and Rastriya Prajantantra Party (RPP) Saturday morning. “When he was brought to Norvic Emergency at around 10 in the morning, he had no blood pressure and no breathing,” said Dr Rawat who has been attending to Thapa along with Dr Shyam Bahadur Pandey and Dr JP Jaiswal, among others.
“His heartbeat did not resume even after prolonged efforts, including CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation), use of necessary emergency drugs and artificial breathing through ventilator. We could revive him and get his heart beats back by an artificial pacemaker after a lot of efforts,” Dr Rawat, who called Thapa´s survival miraculous, explained.
Thapa, who served as the prime minister six times, including once as the chairman of the council of ministers was attending a joint meeting Rastriya Janashakti Party and Rastriya Prajatantra Party to discuss unification of the two parties and also to take stock of the current political situation. He had spoken for about 10 minutes sitting on a sofa when his lips suddenly started to tremble before collapsing, according to Co-chairman of RJP Dr Prakash Chandra Lohani.
“Luckily there was no traffic jam as it was Saturday and we managed to reach Norvic within seven minutes of the incident,” Dr Lohani said. Time is considered very crucial when a person suffers a sudden cardiac arrest, as chances of survival decrease about 10 percent every minute without defibrillation (treatment of heart with electric shock through a defibrillator), according to doctors.
Thapa had an open heart surgery in the United States 23 years ago, according to RJP Co-spokesperson Kiran Giri. “He was keeping pretty well and was coming for regular check-ups. He had no other disease and was pretty fit at 84 yrs,” Dr Rawat stated. Hailing from Muga VDC-4, Dhankuta, Thapa has long been staying at Maligaun in Kathmandu.
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