GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

UNC coun­cil­lor Anil Bali­ram, who is on the road to re­cov­ery, has been trans­ferred from the In­ten­sive Care Unit (ICU) at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal to a gen­er­al ward, ac­cord­ing to se­nior hos­pi­tal of­fi­cials.

The de­vel­op­ment fol­lows a sus­pect­ed sui­cide at­tempt on May 24. Bali­ram was found by his wife at their Cou­va home and was rushed to hos­pi­tal af­ter emer­gency ser­vices at­tempt­ed to re­sus­ci­tate him.

He was ad­mit­ted to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in crit­i­cal con­di­tion.

Bali­ram re­mained un­con­scious for al­most a week and was placed on a ven­ti­la­tor.

Last Fri­day, he was re­moved from the ven­ti­la­tor af­ter he be­gan breath­ing on his own.

He sub­se­quent­ly start­ed re­gain­ing con­scious­ness and was able to speak.

On Mon­day, hos­pi­tal of­fi­cials con­firmed that Bali­ram’s con­di­tion had im­proved from crit­i­cal to sta­ble.

They said he has been dis­charged from the ICU and trans­ferred to a hos­pi­tal ward. How­ev­er, he re­mains on oxy­gen sup­port and his progress con­tin­ues to be mon­i­tored.

Bali­ram’s col­leagues in the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress al­so ex­pressed grat­i­tude yes­ter­day for his re­cov­ery.

Sev­er­al said he is now eat­ing sol­id food and is ca­pa­ble of walk­ing.

They added that they are look­ing for­ward to his dis­charge from hos­pi­tal.

At­tempts to con­tact Bali­ram’s wife for com­ment yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful.