SP Balasubrahmanyam extremely critical and on life support: Hospital

Popular playback singer S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, admitted for COVID-19 treatment and on life support, is extremely critical, a hospital treating him in Chennai said on Thursday.

The 74-year-old Balasubrahmanyam, popularly known as SPB, admitted on August 5, “remains on ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) and other life support measures,” MGM Healthcare said.

 “His condition in the last 24 hours has deteriorated further warranting maximal life support and he is extremely critical,” Assistant Director (Medical Services), MGM Healthcare, Dr Anuradha Baskaran said in a statement. A team of experts at the hospital are monitoring his health condition, she said.

The health condition of the singer, who was admitted to the hospital with mild symptoms deteriorated for the first time on August 13 late night and he was put on life support and moved to the Intensive Care Unit. On August 19, he was put on ECMO besides ventilator and a day after, when he remained critical, people from all walks of life, including celebrities and the general public, came together to pray for his early recovery and his condition stabilised soon.

Towards the end of last month, he underwent passive physiotherapy and later “actively participated in physiotherapy” and he was fully awake and responsive during that phase.

A multi-disciplinary team, comprising specialists from internal medicine, pulmonology and infectious diseases among others, took care of him.

Also, the team actively collaborated with international experts from reputed centres in the United States and the United Kingdom that saw a slew of COVID-19 patients requiring ECMO support.

On September 3, the hospital had said that he was stable, conscious, responsive and continued to show clinical progress and days later it said his condition warranted an extended stay in the ICU requiring ECMO and ventilator support.

Balasubrahmanyam, who has to his credit over 40,000 songs, has sung in languages including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi. During admission, he had symptoms of cold and intermittent fever for a couple of days and had even posted a video in which he sounded confident.