Ailing cartoonist RK laxman showed marginal improvement in his health on Friday, as he began to breathe on his own at Pune’s Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital, a development that prompted the doctors attending on him to discontinue the ventilator support that they had provided him in the initial days of his hospitalisation.
"laxman's medical condition has marginally improved. He is breathing on his own and doesn't require mechanical ventilator assistance,” Dr Sameer Jog, Consultant Intensivist attending on laxman, stated in a medical bulletin issued in the evening. Dr Jog said that laxman was not on ventilator support since Thursday. “laxman’s blood pressure and cardiac function have also improved but he still needs dialysis as his kidney function remains suboptimal. He is tolerating feeding through feeding tube,” the doctor said.
“There is some improvement in his level of consciousness but he is not able to communicate,” Dr Jog added. Ninety-four-year-old laxman was admitted to Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital following multi-organ failure on the night of January 17. The creator of the most popular cartoon strip “Common Man” in “The Times of India”, who had initially been admitted to Medipoint Hospital at Pune for a urinary infection, was shifted to the Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital, after his condition deteriorated.