Ex-Bengal CM Buddadeb Bhattacharya hospitalised in Kolkata with respiratory infection
Times of India | 30 July 2023
KOLKATA: Former West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya was admitted to a Kolkata-based hospital due to a lower respiratory tract infection on Saturday afternoon, officials said.
The 79-year-old leader was rushed from his Palm Avenue residence via a green corridor and immediately placed on mechanical ventilator support in the critical care unit of the private hospital.
Bhattacharya served as the chief minister from 2000 to 2011 and has been grappling with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and other age-related ailments for a considerable period.
"His condition is critical. We are examining him. His oxygen saturation deteriorated to 70 per cent in the afternoon and he became unconscious, following which he was rushed to the hospital," the official told PTI.
A team of senior doctors, including a cardiologist and a pulmonologist, was constituted to monitor his health.
Both his wife Mira Bhattacharya and daughter Suchetana Bhattacharya both are in the hospital.
Bhattacharya has been away from public life for the past few years due to his health.
He had stepped down from the CPI(M)'s politburo and the central committee in 2015 and gave up membership of the state secretariat in 2018.