Kodela's daughter sought Basavatarakam doctors help to save her father

Hyderabad: AP former Assembly speaker and TDP senior leader Dr Kodela Siva Prasada Rao was declared dead at 12.39 pm on Monday. According to Dr R V Prabhakara Rao, CEO of Basavatarakam Indo-American Cancer Hospital, Kodela was brought to the hospital at 11.35 am in an unresponsive state. He stated that resuscitative measures were initiated, as per protocol, immediately. In spite of best efforts of the medical team at Basavatarakam Indo-American Cancer Hospital, he could not be revived and declared dead at 12.39 pm, the CEO said in a press statement.

According to hospital sources, Kodela did not have pulse almost when he was brought to the hospital. It is learnt that Kodela's daughter, who is also a doctor with her own clinic in AP, immediately rang up doctors at Cancer Hospital, where the senior TDP leader is a trust board member.

Reacting quickly, an ambulance with a doctor was rushed to Kodela's daughter's house near the GVK One Mall in Banjara Hills and he was brought into the hospital soon afterwards. Kodela was taken into MICU, that has doctors of all specialities, and very soon the resuscitative measures (which lasted for roughly 45 minutes) were initiated. Hospital sources stated that, though a cancer speciality hospital, Basavatarakam comprises specialists from all departments including General Medicine, Cardiology, Orthopedics, Urology etc. and the argument that he should have been taken to another hospital does not hold good.

Also, it is very natural that an individual or family members tried to consult doctors very known or familiar to them in times of emergency and this is what has happened in Kodela's case. The senior TDP leader being a trust board member at Basavatarakam Cancer hospital is familiar to doctors at the institute and hence his family sought their intervention soon after the tragedy occurred.

According to Kodela's daughter Dr Vijayalakshmi, her father was in depression due to which he had taken the extreme step. After coming out of the shock, she told about the sequence of incidents occurred in their house in the morning. She said they do not have any suspicion on her father's death. She further said that he had his breakfast at 10 am along with her mother and at 10.10 am, he went to his bedroom in the first floor and locked the door. After noticing it, her mother went to the bedroom and knocked it to open the door.

When no response came from inside after repeatedly knocking the door, she called the gunman and the assistant and they all tried to open the door. Meanwhile, the gunman went into the bedroom by breaking the glass windows from backside of the bedroom and tried to rescue Kodela. But his efforts went in vain when he found Kodela hanging to the ceiling fan in his room. The family members immediately shifted him to the Basavatarakam Indo-American Cancer Hospital for an emergency treatment.